Taking cues from iA writer
Hakan Ensari
To follow up on my tweet a few weeks ago, here's what I think would be
super if MacVim perhaps borrowed from iA Writer's minimalist UI.
* You fire MacVim up. No toolbar. A simple, dark toolbar.
http://cl.ly/260K0d1D2K3q2H1P3O0h
* You type or click. The toolbar disappears. Pure canvas.
http://cl.ly/1j1h1Z2G1B3x233v351v
* Finally, a more seductive but probably not-so-straightforward thing
to implement: Gray out everything but the section you are reading/
writing by selecting "focus mode." In iA Writer, the unit is a
sentence, so I'm not sure how that would translate it into text as
code.
http://cl.ly/400M3I3Z0i371I1F3Y21
* Also, off topic, it would be awesome to replace the icon with
something sexier. I'm not a designer but have been using this as a
stop gap measure:
http://cl.ly/1J2P083w3l3z0D2X3V3i
I love MacVim. Thank you for your awesome work.
Hakan
David Patrick Henderson
On 07 Jul 2011, at 15:21, Hakan Ensari wrote:
> here's what I think would be super if MacVim perhaps borrowed from iA Writer's minimalist UI.
>
> * You fire MacVim up. No toolbar. A simple, dark toolbar.
>
> http://cl.ly/260K0d1D2K3q2H1P3O0h
in gvimrc set guioptions-=T “ makes toolbar goaway
or command-shift-F after launch putting it into fullscreen mode
>
> * You type or click. The toolbar disappears. Pure canvas.
>
> http://cl.ly/1j1h1Z2G1B3x233v351v
have you tried putting MacVim into fullscreen mode? every thing but input screen disappears
>
> * Finally, a more seductive but probably not-so-straightforward thing
> to implement: Gray out everything but the section you are reading/
> writing by selecting "focus mode." In iA Writer, the unit is a
> sentence, so I'm not sure how that would translate it into text as
> code.
>
> http://cl.ly/400M3I3Z0i371I1F3Y21
no comment
>
> * Also, off topic, it would be awesome to replace the icon with
> something sexier. I'm not a designer but have been using this as a
> stop gap measure:
>
> http://cl.ly/1J2P083w3l3z0D2X3V3i
The Vim icon is iconic as it immediately identifies the application as vim see http://vim.org
>
> I love MacVim. Thank you for your awesome work.
>
I agree without reservation.
You should consider that many of the changes you are requesting might require significant changes to the underlying vim around which Bjorn has built a lovely and utile GUI in MacVim. Why not ask iA Writer to incorporate those vim features that you rely on or just use iA when you want “distraction free” writing environment?
David P Henderson
c: 757.286.3212
--
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe."
-- Albert Einstein
Chip Warden
The only thing in this thread I agree with is your professed love of MacVim. Incorporating any feature of iA Writer into MacVim? Disgusting. Let's look at some history.
Vi has been around since the 1970s. Vim has been around since the 1990s. iA Writer is the latest love of the "minimalist computing" cadre, and has only been around for what, two, three months? Undoubtably, iA Writer will be replaced in less than 12 months by another tool as the new hotness among the minimalist crowd. As a writer of text and code for a living, it (iA Writer) seems to be a terrible productivity tool -- but hey, that's just my opinion. Of course, I'm opposed to the TextMate-style file browser being incorporated into MacVim -- if I wanted TextMate, I'd use TextMate, not MacVim.
The beauty of MacVim for me has always been the exacting balance between the upstream Vim and OS X standards that Mr. Winckler has achieved.
Please do not take any of these statements as flamebait. I'm just an opinionated SOB.
Chip
Janusz Bossy
<hakan....@papercavalier.com> wrote:
> * You type or click. The toolbar disappears. Pure canvas.
I'd love this feature. I actually have never used the buttons on the
title bar, so why use the space?
> Gray out everything but the section you are reading/
> writing by selecting "focus mode."
It could be kind of cool to have MacVim focus code the way Xcode does
- puts focus on blocks of code between curly braces or just based on
the indentation level. I'm sure this can be done with a plugin for vim
so it doesn't require any changes in MacVim.
> * Also, off topic, it would be awesome to replace the icon with
> something sexier. I'm not a designer but have been using this as a
> stop gap measure:
I also dislike the Vim's icon. I know it's history, iconic and
everything but it just doesn't fit into any of the new OSes (if you
work with a console you don't need the icon ;)). I've been using this:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/593/screenshot20110708at114.png/
Janusz
dacresni
I don't quite see how it doesn't fit but, do tell.
Brian Wolven
ivar vasara
> Change the icon? Seriously, nothing better to do? Don't any of you people
> *work* for a living? =P
Spoken like a true server side developer !
I don't see this as an unreasonable request - a quick look at
http://www.google.ca/search?q=macvim+icon suggests that others have
thought so too.
Given the reputation for attention to design, aesthetics and usability
on the Mac platform, this pursuit of excellence should be expected.
Also because the core functionality of macvim is so solid (thanks
Bram, Bjorn et al.) that attention turns to smaller details.
David Patrick Henderson
> I also dislike the Vim's icon. I know it's history, iconic and
> everything but it just doesn't fit into any of the new OSes (if you
> work with a console you don't need the icon ;)). I've been using this:
> http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/593/screenshot20110708at114.png/
I like this one. Now, make the background a green button and I’d say that you’ve captured the essence of the original logo while giving it a sweet modern update.
David P Henderson
c: 757.286.3212
--
"Beautiful bodies and beautiful personalities rarely go together."
-- Carl Jung
Andy Michaels
>
> I like this one. Now, make the background a green button and I’d say that you’ve captured the essence of the original logo while giving it a sweet modern update.
I like that icon as well. I'm ambivalent on the color, but I do like
the look of it.
-andy
björn
>
> To follow up on my tweet a few weeks ago, here's what I think would be
> super if MacVim perhaps borrowed from iA Writer's minimalist UI.
>
> * You fire MacVim up. No toolbar. A simple, dark toolbar.
>
> http://cl.ly/260K0d1D2K3q2H1P3O0h
Changing to a dark window frame would require changing the tabs to
match as well. Nothing that I feel up to doing I'm afraid. Besides,
doesn't this violate a million Apple HIGs?
":set go-=T" is the closest to this that I think I'd like to go.
> * You type or click. The toolbar disappears. Pure canvas.
>
> http://cl.ly/1j1h1Z2G1B3x233v351v
Again, this must violate the Apple HIG?
I think full screen mode is a good substitute that also does not
violate the HIG.
> * Finally, a more seductive but probably not-so-straightforward thing
> to implement: Gray out everything but the section you are reading/
> writing by selecting "focus mode." In iA Writer, the unit is a
> sentence, so I'm not sure how that would translate it into text as
> code.
>
> http://cl.ly/400M3I3Z0i371I1F3Y21
As has been mentioned this should be possible to implement using Vim
script. It is nothing that I would want to write code for at any
rate.
> * Also, off topic, it would be awesome to replace the icon with
> something sexier. I'm not a designer but have been using this as a
> stop gap measure:
>
> http://cl.ly/1J2P083w3l3z0D2X3V3i
No, I will not change the icon for something that does not look like
the "green diamond with a V". This topic has been brought up in the
past and it just leads to discussions that I'd rather not participate
in (or read for that matter). Sorry, I'm not a big fan of the green
diamond either, but it is here to stay.
> I love MacVim. Thank you for your awesome work.
Cheers! That is always nice to hear. :-)
I always appreciate suggestions for change even though I don't really
want to accommodate any of the ones you just brought up. Please don't
take this as me saying I don't want any change at all -- in fact, I do
think we should allow ourselves to be influenced by other editors
somewhat.
Björn
Hakan Ensari
> ":set go-=T" is the closest to this that I think I'd like to go.
>
> Again, this must violate the Apple HIG?
guess would be it does not? QuickTime Player has a similar dark
toolbar that vanishes when the video starts playing and so on.
Yes, I do go full screen most of the time but there are others where I
choose not to for various reasons.
> I always appreciate suggestions for change even though I don't really
> want to accommodate any of the ones you just brought up. Please don't
> take this as me saying I don't want any change at all -- in fact, I do
> think we should allow ourselves to be influenced by other editors
> somewhat.
>
Hakan