[HN Gopher] Onivim 2 is a retro-futuristic modal editor
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Onivim 2 is a retro-futuristic modal editor
Author : niedzielski
Score : 80 points
Date : 2021-06-25 04:56 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (v2.onivim.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (v2.onivim.io)
| ford_o wrote:
| Why does it try to look like vscode clone?
|
| I understand that the vscode ecosystem is awesome. However, I
| always felt like the UI was severaly lacking behind proper IDE
| like intellij.
|
| Give me intellij-like documentation popup, run, build & debug
| buttons and debug UI, and I will switch in an instant!
| pope_meat wrote:
| I stared at the landing page for a good 15 seconds wondering "why
| is that picture... breathing?"
| pantulis wrote:
| Same here!
| TheFreim wrote:
| What does this offer that evil-mode emacs, or even vscode, has to
| offer...?
| twobitshifter wrote:
| If every text editor has to implement full emacs functionality,
| every alternate text editor project should just stop now.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| <<retro-futuristic modal editor>> not helpful for marketing, what
| is the meaning here? maybe some correlation with <<outrun labs>>
| name and outrun look, but not clear. it also has advertisement
| for <<native code>> but this not always means fast. text editor
| problem is more latency than <<speed>>, any latency benchmark
| made yet?
| enw wrote:
| Isn't this VS Code with the Vim extension?
| hvis wrote:
| Seems like it's Vim with a VS Code extension/adapter instead.
|
| Intriguing idea, though not sure how viable.
| trutannus wrote:
| Took far too long for me to figure out that this isn't just a
| VS Code extension. I'm not even entirely sure this isn't.
| felixr wrote:
| No, it is actually using the real vim in the background. So
| while you might not be able to use all vim plugins/scripts, it
| should give you a much more complete vim experience. See also
| https://github.com/onivim/libvim
| e12e wrote:
| Is it better than (the AFAIK newer)
| https://github.com/asvetliakov/vscode-neovim ?
| ddek wrote:
| No, likely out of diffidence onivim has a very similar design
| to VSC. It doesn't appear to share any code with VS Code
| though.
| WiiManic wrote:
| This isn't technically true, the extension host we use is
| directly the one from VSCode, such that we can support their
| extensions (well...a subset as we fill in the gaps in for the
| Oni2 <-> ExtHost communication).
|
| But the actual core editor is all seperate, written in
| ReasonML (or OCaml if you know that instead), with a bunch of
| C libs in the background we've wrapped (Skia/Harfbuzz/We wrap
| real vim etc).
|
| So the core editing experience has no code sharing, but the
| extension side of things does!
| whatyearisit wrote:
| I really wanted to like Onivim 2, but went back to Visual Studio
| code after supporting the creator on Patreon for a while. The
| last build and creator update was provided months ago for
| supporters.
|
| I also wanted to vote against the pricing model, because I think
| it should be a one time purchase. The creator and his company
| behind the editor tries to create a serious FOMO on likely
| customers. I considered it to be a red flag on a potential
| abandonment. Additionally, I felt it would be easier for Visual
| Studio code become faster than Onivim 2 can have support for all
| Visual Studio code extensions.
|
| On the plus side, Onivim 2 has some smart defaults which made it
| a joy to use. I encourage anyone who thinks about buying Onivim 2
| to first learn how to fine tune VS Code to look and feel like
| Onivim 2 because you can.
| phelipetls wrote:
| It's unfortunate that some VS Code extensions, e.g. remote
| development extensions, can't be used in Onivim 2 due to license
| restrictions[1].
|
| [1]:
| https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/196#issuecomment...
| nine_k wrote:
| What's most interesting for me here is Revery, the GUI framework.
| React-like, cross-platform, native-code, MIT-licensed.
|
| Yes, it's not using native widgets (so no built-in
| accessibility), but that might be fine in many cases.
| romwell wrote:
| Looking forward to seeing it displace Electron.
| k__ wrote:
| Back in the days, I would have bet on Revery as Electron
| replacement.
|
| But currently, Tauri seems like a more viable option.
| nine_k wrote:
| Not soon: however I like ML-style languages, it's JS / TS
| what has the mass market adoption now.
|
| It's not even the language, it's not much harder to learn
| than TS. It's the smaller library ecosystem of Reason /
| OCaml.
| siproprio wrote:
| Does it really have _INSTANT_ startup time (i.e. Sublime Text)?
|
| If it has, I'm interested.
|
| Was not able to find the trial though.
| xaduha wrote:
| $ time /opt/oni/Onivim2.AppDir/usr/bin/Oni2 --nofork --silent
| -c qa real 0m0,360s user 0m0,280s
| sys 0m0,042s
| skavi wrote:
| How fast does this feel compared to VS Code?
|
| I went into the whole onivim -> revery -> reason rabbit hole and
| the native code compilation is compelling, but Flutter does the
| same thing and is pretty slow.
| xaduha wrote:
| It feels faster than VSCode, but I would wait until at least
| 0.6 before trying it out more.
| albingroen wrote:
| I bought a license like 6 months ago and have tried a couple of
| times back and forth during this period. I thought this was
| exactly what I was looking for. A modern mix on Vim and VSCode. I
| was pretty disappointed though tbh. You can really just VSCode
| with the Vim extension, or just use actual Vim. I think there is
| space for a product like this though, so A for effort!
| JNRowe wrote:
| Much like you, I think I'm probably the target audience for
| this.
|
| One of the things that stops me from using neovim - regardless
| of any changes I'd like - is the removal of gvim. I like my
| gvim candy; SVG icons in sign columns, better modifier support
| in maps, drag and drop when in command line,
| $things_ive_forgot_i_use.
|
| Likewise, I also believe the idea of onivim is worth a licence
| fee, even it turns out I can't get behind it. It just feels
| like one of those projects I want to see succeed, even if it
| isn't for me.
| [deleted]
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Aside, I see it has tabs as defaults- what are people's thoughts
| on tabbed editors?
| koehr wrote:
| Honestly, melting two open source editors together (or rather
| cloning one while integrating the other) and ask for that amount
| of money for it is in my opinion unacceptable. The only thing
| that would make this a bit more acceptable is when the developers
| are promising to spend a lot of their earnings for vim
| development (and maybe VSCode, too).
|
| *edit:* Just saw that it is actually open source and will be
| available for non-commercial use for free. I'm more than fine
| with that model!
| lifty wrote:
| Onivim doesn't use vscode. It's a from scratch implementation
| that doesn't use electron, but they do replicate the vscode
| plugin system so they can be compatible with it.
| WiiManic wrote:
| > Just saw that it is actually open source and will be
| available for non-commercial use for free. I'm more than fine
| with that model!
|
| Yeah, we are using the dual-licensing model that some other
| projects use.
|
| Source available may be a more accurate description, since it
| can be somewhat controversial to claim to be open source and
| use our licensing model.
|
| Tl;dr:
|
| - Commits from the core team are licensed under an EULA for 18
| months. You can use Oni2 for free for non-commercial stuff, but
| need a license for commercial use.
|
| - After 18 months, commits are re-licensed to MIT license, and
| appear in the Oni2-MIT repo, where they are then subject to the
| normal rules of that license.
|
| We do also periodically give to the upstream projects that
| power us, i.e. you'll see our name in the Vim leaderboard
| thingy since we give money to the charity that Vim asks for
| donations to.
|
| And to be clear, whilst we use the vim source code as the
| editing experience base, the UI is our own, thought obviously
| looks very similar to VSCode, though no UI code is shared etc
| (Oni2 is written in Reason, VSCode in Typescript).
| a3w wrote:
| Buying software without a trial makes me disinterested. I still
| want to learn using vim every day, but won't commit to this text
| editor/vsx-powered IDE, unless I find out that I have the guts to
| use it every day. Also, there is VIM mode for VS Code, I guess.
| WiiManic wrote:
| Oni2 is available for use for free for non-commercial usage, it
| just needs building from source at the moment. The steps are in
| the user manual if anyone is interested:
| https://onivim.github.io/docs/for-developers/building
|
| Partially that is a thank you to those who have supported our
| development, and partially its to help put up a small barrier
| to entry, just so we don't get too flooded with issues and
| feature requests!
|
| A public release is coming soon-ish, and can be used for non-
| commercial use.
| injidup wrote:
| Hand holding is still a thing here I guess.
| https://onivim.github.io/docs/for-developers/building
| gryn wrote:
| it seems to be open source there's a link in the page to the
| project's GitHub page.
|
| https://github.com/onivim/oni2
| ddek wrote:
| > Also, there is VIM mode for VS Code, I guess.
|
| I feel like this is something said by people who are more
| invested in VS Code than vim. The main vim plugin for VS Code
| is straight trash.* It's slow, buggy, and unintuitive; while
| lacking the extensibility that vim has. At least IDEAVim, which
| has the same limitations of being built in another IDE,
| replicates enough of the common plugins to be pleasant.
|
| It's also worth noting that onivim is not VS Code repackaged.
| It is not an electron app, and it doesn't appear to use the
| monaco editor. They have apparently taken great design
| inspiration from VS Code, which I think is a fairly diffident
| decision.
|
| Overall, I'm looking at neovim nightly and not knowing why
| onivim is a thing. I can understand the appeal of a GUI vim,
| but implementing a vim backend is a monumental task _if you
| intend to be compatible with existing vim plugins_ (and you
| should). Nvim 0.5 has native lua, and now freed from vimscript
| the quality of plugins is improving continuously. I just can 't
| see a way for a 'third vim' - if you don't start with vimscript
| you won't be compatible, but if you do you're already outdated.
|
| * There are a few attempts to splice VS Code and neovim, all of
| these are awful.
| WiiManic wrote:
| > but implementing a vim backend is a monumental task if you
| intend to be compatible with existing vim plugins
|
| We skipped that and haven't implemented any vim backend at
| all!
|
| We use/made libvim[1], which is just the vim source, that
| we've essentially turned into a library. So its the vim code
| base with terminal UI stuff stripped out, and an interface
| added for us to hook into it. The README of that repo has
| some good insight into that (including why we didn't use
| neovim here, as much as the team all loves nvim).
|
| We don't support vimscript stuff at the moment, but its in
| progress as all the vim source code is there to load/run it
| as normal, its just about integrating is properly into Oni2
| (making sure keybinds are working, commands are properly
| loaded, packing stuff up nicely for distrib etc).
|
| (There is some other motivation bits in this doc[2]. Its
| outdated since we haven't edited it since before the project
| started, but it outlines the motivations we went in with
| etc).
|
| [1]: https://github.com/onivim/libvim [2]: https://github.com
| /onivim/oni2/blob/master/docs/MOTIVATION.m...
| jnovek wrote:
| "We skipped that and haven't implemented any vim backend at
| all ... so its the vim code base with terminal UI stuff
| stripped out, and an interface added for us to hook into
| it."
|
| You took out the most important part!
|
| I don't know about other people, but I became a vim user
| because I found myself configuring servers and needed to
| know a better text editor than nano.
|
| Vim is also my primary code editor these days but
| portability is still a killer feature.
| lbotos wrote:
| You are mis-interpreting what they did. They literally
| took vim, and built a ui around it. No re-implementation.
| It's Vim with a more modern frontend stack. You can go
| look at the libvim source and see it for yourself.
|
| The point of this is to bring Vim into more modern
| workflows, not but "vim compat" but literally... _vim_.
|
| Source: had some pull requests into libvim a while back
| to remove a lot of the various legacy compat features
| that don't make sense for libvim.
| rapind wrote:
| According to their FAQ it looks like they'll be offering a
| trial version once they hit v1.
|
| https://onivim.github.io/docs/other/faq#is-there-a-trial-ver...
| dasdadjak wrote:
| Was an early adopter in 2019, right now not so much. No proper
| channel distributions, no hidpi support, UI clone/copy/paste of
| vscode - all things which actually makes user sad... After all
| going in the wrong direction, sorry.
| rapind wrote:
| I'm interested. I don't think it's far enough along for me yet
| (.vimrc support), but I'll be keeping an eye on it.
|
| I really like the "Outline" view, as I'm often editing large
| files and would find this extremely useful.
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