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Floating windows: - Are real windows showing real buffers. No shortcuts, hacks, or compromises. - Can be (re)positioned, anchored, or "external" (if supported

Floating windows: - Are real windows showing real buffers. No shortcuts, hacks, or compromises. - Can be (re)positioned, anchored, or "external" (if supported by the UI). - Support all features and API of normal windows, plus more. Screenshot showing floating window with 'winblend': https://twitter.com/Neovim/status/1145446583573594112 https://twitter.com/Neovim/status/1145446583573594112 Yes, that screenshot shows Nvim in a terminal. The 'winblend' feature works in all UIs, including the TUI (all terminals that support RGB colors).

shmerl 7y ago
I see, thanks!
Sean1708 7y ago
Just to make sure I understand correctly, that floating window is entirely within neovim (i.e. it isn't a separate window as far as your window manager is concerned)? And if that's correct, does this mean that it would work if you SSHed into a server?
- justinmk 7y ago
  yes and yes.
- maccam94 7y ago
  Yes, neovim is compositing the windows inside the text UI in a terminal.
  - PeCaN 7y ago
    That's an extremely cool party trick but I'm also slightly concerned that neovim started to cut bloat in vim and ended up implementing a compositing window manager with fake transparency. Though the idea is just pretty damn cool in general so I can't get too grumpy about it.
    - oblio 7y ago
      Vim already had floating windows, why not make them cool/useful if they're there, anyway? :)
    - maccam94 7y ago
      On the bright side, this is actually a demonstration of the extensive work the neovim team has done cleaning up the UI layers. justinmk's comment above goes into more detail, but basically vim has gone from having a single array of characters that gets manipulated by every type of display item to windows with their own positioning and dimensions. In addition, these windows will be exposed via APIs that external GUIs can use.
  - justinmk 7y ago
    Replying to PeCaN: > slightly concerned that neovim started to cut bloat in vim and ended up implementing a compositing window manager with fake transparency. "Window manager" existed since vim got split-windows (1990s). Redesigning it as a compositor: - isolates windows logically, so that UIs can do their own layout instead of being stuck with the TUI grid - useful for implementing floating windows - allows reasoning about layers instead of one grid driven by special-cases throughout the project - helps with features such as "click through", z-index, etc. The blending (fake transparency) was a small (~200 LoC) amount of code, added only for fun (and to ruffle feathers).
    - badosu 7y ago
      Also, if I am not mistaken, the code that handles the multiplexing (multigrid) was not made only for this feature, but a generalization that improves a lot of capabilities for GUIs. Thanks for all the work Neovim team!
    - PeCaN 7y ago
      This is reasonable enough, but personally I'm not really convinced a text editor should be handling windows at all, especially since neovim allegedly is designed to be embedded by a ‘real’ UI (and presumably could be embedded by a terminal-based UI that handles windows—or just uses tmux). I do recognize that I prefer software to be simpler than most people (for the record, much of the time I use ed(1)).

shmerl 7y ago

I see, thanks!

Sean1708 7y ago

Just to make sure I understand correctly, that floating window is entirely within neovim (i.e. it isn't a separate window as far as your window manager is concerned)? And if that's correct, does this mean that it would work if you SSHed into a server?

justinmk 7y ago
yes and yes.
maccam94 7y ago
Yes, neovim is compositing the windows inside the text UI in a terminal.
- PeCaN 7y ago
  That's an extremely cool party trick but I'm also slightly concerned that neovim started to cut bloat in vim and ended up implementing a compositing window manager with fake transparency. Though the idea is just pretty damn cool in general so I can't get too grumpy about it.
  - oblio 7y ago
    Vim already had floating windows, why not make them cool/useful if they're there, anyway? :)
  - maccam94 7y ago
    On the bright side, this is actually a demonstration of the extensive work the neovim team has done cleaning up the UI layers. justinmk's comment above goes into more detail, but basically vim has gone from having a single array of characters that gets manipulated by every type of display item to windows with their own positioning and dimensions. In addition, these windows will be exposed via APIs that external GUIs can use.
- justinmk 7y ago
  Replying to PeCaN: > slightly concerned that neovim started to cut bloat in vim and ended up implementing a compositing window manager with fake transparency. "Window manager" existed since vim got split-windows (1990s). Redesigning it as a compositor: - isolates windows logically, so that UIs can do their own layout instead of being stuck with the TUI grid - useful for implementing floating windows - allows reasoning about layers instead of one grid driven by special-cases throughout the project - helps with features such as "click through", z-index, etc. The blending (fake transparency) was a small (~200 LoC) amount of code, added only for fun (and to ruffle feathers).
  - badosu 7y ago
    Also, if I am not mistaken, the code that handles the multiplexing (multigrid) was not made only for this feature, but a generalization that improves a lot of capabilities for GUIs. Thanks for all the work Neovim team!
  - PeCaN 7y ago
    This is reasonable enough, but personally I'm not really convinced a text editor should be handling windows at all, especially since neovim allegedly is designed to be embedded by a ‘real’ UI (and presumably could be embedded by a terminal-based UI that handles windows—or just uses tmux). I do recognize that I prefer software to be simpler than most people (for the record, much of the time I use ed(1)).