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I like this quote: > Vim is a small language for editing text that ships with a small user interface. Pardon my ignorance, but are the two separable? Could so

I like this quote: > Vim is a small language for editing text that ships with a small user interface. Pardon my ignorance, but are the two separable? Could someone write a GUI interface that uses the vim text editing language underneath? I know of gvim, but this seems to be just vim with a menu bar.

mrkgnao 10y ago
There are plenty of Vim emulator plugins for "GUI editors" like Atom (or even the Visual Studio family, as a comment in this thread mentions) that do just that!
- falcolas 10y ago
  Sadly, most do it poorly. There's a lot more to Vim than 'hjklia'.
- chestervonwinch 10y ago
  Yes, I've used them in emacs, atom, etc. They're useful, but often feel unnatural. I was looking for something that was built from the ground up specifically as "vim editing with a nice interface" -- maybe this is neovim, as someone else suggested.
  - johnchristopher 10y ago
    Nope, VIM the UX (keys and movement) and VIM the application are not separated at the moment. It would be great to be able to use VIM key movement as drop-in replacement for any text field OS wide but the VIM interface (the command line) plays an important role in the UI and I don't see how it could be swept aside without losing some VIM core functionality: EG how do you :%s///gi without the overlay command line ?
    - majewsky 10y ago
      I actually have a design document from 5 years ago lying around in my backup that outlines a desktop shell based on (and expanding on) vim's UX. I should get back to that project one day.
pmoriarty 10y ago
I think you're looking for neovim.
- pyre 10y ago
  NeoVim is really a fork though, not a separate implementation.
  - iokanuon 10y ago
    Yeah, but someone could "write a GUI interface that uses the vim text editing language underneath" using neovim. It's one of its main selling points. https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Plugin-UI-architecture https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Plugin-UI-architecture

mrkgnao 10y ago

There are plenty of Vim emulator plugins for "GUI editors" like Atom (or even the Visual Studio family, as a comment in this thread mentions) that do just that!

falcolas 10y ago
Sadly, most do it poorly. There's a lot more to Vim than 'hjklia'.
chestervonwinch 10y ago
Yes, I've used them in emacs, atom, etc. They're useful, but often feel unnatural. I was looking for something that was built from the ground up specifically as "vim editing with a nice interface" -- maybe this is neovim, as someone else suggested.
- johnchristopher 10y ago
  Nope, VIM the UX (keys and movement) and VIM the application are not separated at the moment. It would be great to be able to use VIM key movement as drop-in replacement for any text field OS wide but the VIM interface (the command line) plays an important role in the UI and I don't see how it could be swept aside without losing some VIM core functionality: EG how do you :%s///gi without the overlay command line ?
  - majewsky 10y ago
    I actually have a design document from 5 years ago lying around in my backup that outlines a desktop shell based on (and expanding on) vim's UX. I should get back to that project one day.

pmoriarty 10y ago

I think you're looking for neovim.

pyre 10y ago
NeoVim is really a fork though, not a separate implementation.
- iokanuon 10y ago
  Yeah, but someone could "write a GUI interface that uses the vim text editing language underneath" using neovim. It's one of its main selling points. https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Plugin-UI-architecture https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Plugin-UI-architecture