[vim/vim] [New Feature] Multi line statusline (simple specification) (PR #19123)

h_east

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Jan 7, 2026, 8:51:44 AM (7 days ago) Jan 7

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I submitted PR #18871 two months ago.
However, because I set out an ideal final specification, I had to resolve several major issues and it nearly stalled.
So I closed that PR and switched to a more realistic approach, gradually merging the specifications one by one.

Make the 'statuslineopt' option global only.
Remove the "fixedheight:" option from 'statuslineopt' and make it fixed at all times.
Make the "maxheight:" option in 'statuslineopt' a best-effort value. (We will strive to keep the value as close to the specified value as possible for all windows on all tab pages.)

This way, I thought it would be feasible to implement without having to worry about things like uniform window heights.

@chrisbra and All,
Is there a chance this will be merged into mainstream?

You can view, comment on, or merge this pull request online at:

https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/19123

Commit Summary

5d0c810 Multi line statusline (simple specification)

File Changes

(20 files)

Patch Links:

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h_east

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Jan 7, 2026, 9:44:59 AM (7 days ago) Jan 7

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@h-east pushed 1 commit.

6725132 Multi line statusline (simple specification)

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Christian Brabandt

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Jan 7, 2026, 2:16:18 PM (7 days ago) Jan 7

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chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#19123)

Thanks, I think this is a nice addition.

Is there a chance this will be merged into mainstream?

Yes after the 9.2 release. We can then work out the remaining issues.

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h_east

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Jan 8, 2026, 1:03:03 AM (6 days ago) Jan 8

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h-east left a comment (vim/vim#19123)

Under the specification of this PR, the code is almost complete and works as intended.
(I'll add a few tests to test_statuslineopt)

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thinca

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12:57 AM (12 hours ago) 12:57 AM

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thinca left a comment (vim/vim#19123)

How about using "\n" as a line break?
'tabpanel' does this.

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h_east

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3:33 AM (9 hours ago) 3:33 AM

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h-east left a comment (vim/vim#19123)

The tabpanel specification is odd.
I plan to change it to “%@”. Neither the statusline nor the tabpanel should be split using actual newline characters.

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h_east

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8:20 AM (4 hours ago) 8:20 AM

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@h-east pushed 1 commit.

72b571f Multi line statusline (simple specification)

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h_east

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9:26 AM (3 hours ago) 9:26 AM

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h-east left a comment (vim/vim#19123)

@chrisbra and All,
I don't think it's a good Vim specification for tabpanels to break lines with \n. I think the tabpanel specification change should be made by the 9.2 release, and it will be difficult to do so after that.
So in this PR I've reduced the multi-line statusline to a simpler specification and introduced a line break mechanism with %@ to 'statusline'. Then, to match this, I'm planning to change the specification of 'tabpanel' (abolishing line breaks with \n and introducing line breaks with %@) and refactor tabpanel.c, which is difficult to maintain.

Is the above plan acceptable?

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zeertzjq

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9:52 AM (3 hours ago) 9:52 AM

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zeertzjq left a comment (vim/vim#19123)

%@ may cause some confusion:
Copilot.png (view on web)
Note that GitHub Copilot's answer is incorrect here, as clickable statusline areas is a Neovim-only feature.

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Christian Brabandt

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11:40 AM (1 hour ago) 11:40 AM

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chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#19123)

I don't follow. I'd argue using \n would be a reasonable choice as linebreak character, since it is widely known even outside of the Vim community.