[vim/vim] Add --enable-gui=gtk4 support (PR #19815)
mattn
Add GTK4 GUI backend using separate source files instead of adding conditional branches to the existing GTK2/GTK3 code. GTK4's API changes are too fundamental for #if branching to be maintainable.
This PR was developed with the assistance of Claude Code (Anthropic).
Build
./configure --enable-gui=gtk4
make
Requires GTK 4.10+ (for GtkFontDialog).
New files
gui_gtk4_f.c/h— GtkForm widget (extends GtkWidget, uses GskTransform)gui_gtk4_x11.c— Main GUI implementation (events, drawing, fonts, colors)gui_gtk4.c— Scrollbars, dialogs, menu stubs
What works
- Window display and resizing
- Text rendering (Pango glyph string based)
- Key input via GtkEventController
- Mouse events (click, motion, scroll, focus)
- Background/foreground colors and colorschemes
- Font selection dialog (
:set guifont=*) via GtkFontDialog - Scrollbar show/hide
:q!exit- Plugin compatibility (vim-lsp, vim-lsp-settings)
What's not implemented yet
- Menu system (GTK4 uses GMenu/GtkPopoverMenuBar)
- Toolbar
- File chooser dialog (
:browse) - Message dialog (
gui_mch_dialog) - Find/Replace dialog
- Clipboard (GTK4 uses GdkClipboard)
- Cursor blinking
- Screen scrolling (
gui_mch_delete_lines/gui_mch_insert_lines) - Drag and drop
- XIM input method support
- Sign icons
- Balloon eval (tooltips)
This is a work in progress.
You can view, comment on, or merge this pull request online at:
https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/19815
Commit Summary
- f58481f Add 'pumopacity' option for popup menu transparency
- c072e40 pumopacity: move blend processing into screen_puts_len/screen_fill
- 31efdf1 pumopacity: add hl_pum_blend_attr() for correct fg/bg blending
- 97c745e pumopacity: remove dead code and fix duplicate condition
- 5311443 pumopacity: add tests for 'pumopacity' option
- f7cf5cb pumopacity: remove stray blank line in popupmenu.c
- 1abdde6 pumopacity: fix build error when FEAT_PROP_POPUP is not defined
- 26ba5c6 pumopacity: mark blend param UNUSED in hl_pum_blend_attr()
- 79ef5cd pumopacity: fix did_set_pumopacity() order in proto file
- 5aedbfe Fix pum opacity background mismatch after window resize
- c563743 pumopacity: fix option sort order in optiondefs.h
- 1667043 Add 'pumopt' option to consolidate pum settings
- 6f50ba8 Remove 'pumopacity' option, use 'pumopt' opacity: instead
- b584731 Add 'pumopt' tag to doc/tags
- f3f49e6 Add --enable-gui=gtk4 support with separate GTK4 implementation
File Changes
(36 files)
- M runtime/doc/options.txt (57)
- M runtime/doc/tags (1)
- M runtime/syntax/vim.vim (4)
- M src/Makefile (28)
- M src/beval.h (2)
- M src/clipboard.c (2)
- M src/config.h.in (3)
- M src/configure (17939)
- M src/configure.ac (48)
- M src/evalfunc.c (7)
- M src/feature.h (8)
- M src/globals.h (17)
- M src/gui.h (23)
- M src/gui_beval.c (4)
- A src/gui_gtk4.c (225)
- A src/gui_gtk4_f.c (283)
- A src/gui_gtk4_f.h (59)
- A src/gui_gtk4_x11.c (1971)
- M src/highlight.c (132)
- M src/option.h (1)
- M src/optiondefs.h (4)
- M src/optionstr.c (275)
- M src/popupmenu.c (147)
- M src/proto.h (9)
- A src/proto/gui_gtk4.pro (20)
- A src/proto/gui_gtk4_x11.pro (70)
- M src/proto/highlight.pro (1)
- M src/proto/optionstr.pro (2)
- M src/proto/popupmenu.pro (1)
- M src/screen.c (41)
- A src/testdir/dumps/Test_pumopt_opacity_100.dump (20)
- A src/testdir/dumps/Test_pumopt_opacity_50.dump (20)
- M src/testdir/test_popup.vim (46)
- M src/testdir/util/gen_opt_test.vim (5)
- M src/version.c (4)
- M src/vim.h (2)
Patch Links:
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- 311b6cf Add --enable-gui=gtk4 support with separate GTK4 implementation
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- 7328942 GTK4: implement cursor, scrolling, mouse, dialogs
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- 0a8b2b7 GTK4: implement clipboard, signs, tabline, mouse shape, and more
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- 3965ef6 GTK4: default window size to 80x24
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- 9d95aae GTK4: implement drag-and-drop, geometry, cleanup
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- 7f9cead GTK4: add GtkIMContext input method support
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- 2c5b2f2 GTK4: implement Find/Replace dialog
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- 8f93060 GTK4: implement toolbar
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- 2a841df GTK4: implement toolbar
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- 006fedf GTK4: fix white screen and resize loop
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- 84765e0 GTK4: implement menu system with GMenu/GtkPopoverMenuBar
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- 6d5eb11 GTK4: fix resize handling and scrollbar layout
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- 94732fa GTK4: fix vertical resize shrink
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Christian Brabandt
chrisbra left a comment (vim/vim#19815)wow, very nice. Can you share a screenshot of vim --clean -g ?
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Foxe Chen
64-bitman left a comment (vim/vim#19815)I think the GTK4 port of GVim should focus more on Wayland instead of X11, which is already deprecated and will be removed in GTK5. I suppose there are issues with keyboard layout detection, but there a much more users that have it working fine. Having a 2800 line file called "gui_gtk4_x11.c" does not feel right...
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mattn
mattn left a comment (vim/vim#19815)Default GDK backend is x11
image.png (view on web) image.png (view on web) image.png (view on web) image.png (view on web)$ GDK_BACKEND=wayland GSK_RENDERER=cairo ./vim -gf
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- cd26f51 GTK4: use GtkOverlay for drawarea auto-resize
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mattn
mattn left a comment (vim/vim#19815)Currently the only X11 dependency in the GTK4 backend is XParseGeometry from <X11/Xutil.h>. By implementing our own geometry parser, we can remove the X11 dependency entirely and switch the default GDK_BACKEND to Wayland.
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mattn
mattn left a comment (vim/vim#19815)This also means we could rename gui_gtk4_x11.c to gui_gtk4.c since it would no longer have any X11 dependency.
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- 3c70ced GTK4: add new files to Filelist for CI packaging check
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- 42c3d16 GTK4: merge gui_gtk4_x11.c into gui_gtk4.c
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- 13343a1 GTK4: fix preprocessor indent in gui_xim.c
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- ab3601d GTK4: suppress EGL warnings when GL is unavailable
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- 37cfce5 GTK4: fix scrollbar CRITICAL warnings
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- 4d8ff9f GTK4: remove direct X11 dependency
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- 3c84d69 GTK4: remove direct X11 dependency
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- cb39dfa GTK4: remove direct X11 dependency
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mattn
mattn left a comment (vim/vim#19815)The GTK4 port now has zero direct X11 dependency 💪
$ nm -u ./vim | grep -i '^.\+U.*X[A-Z]' | grep -v 'gdk\|gtk\|glib\|pango\|cairo\|GLIBC\|g_\|getx'
(no output)
The X11 libraries shown by ldd are all indirect dependencies pulled in by libgtk-4.so itself, not by Vim's code.
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- 3faccb8 GTK4: fix text rendering, wide chars, and cursor focus
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mattn
mattn left a comment (vim/vim#19815)Multi-byte characters are now rendering correctly. Getting close to completion.
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Foxe Chen
64-bitman left a comment (vim/vim#19815)I am getting build errors when trying to compile this PR. It seems that multiple functions in gui_gtk4.c are not exposed in the .pro file
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- 7db1c98 GTK4: fix missing prototypes in gui_gtk4.pro
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mattn
mattn left a comment (vim/vim#19815)Sorry, the proto file was broken when gui_gtk4_x11.c was merged into gui_gtk4.c. It should be fixed now.
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