VIM 8.1 with MUI GUI out now and for AmigaOS4!

Date 2019/5/3 20:38:12 | Topic: Software News

What is it ? ...

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. Vim is rock stable and is continuously being developed to become even better.
Among its features are:

* persistent, multi-level undo tree
* extensive plugin system
* support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
* powerful search and replace
* integrates with many tools

Please note that this is not a straight port of the upstream version. It includes a full MUI GUI with most of the bells and whistles found in Vim on any of the major platforms.

Check screenshot of AmigaOS4 version (click on image for full size):

Original Image

Source code is open, hosted on sourceforge (yeah, author aware about other things like github and co, but currently its on sourceforge) and can be found there: https://sourceforge.net/projects/spaden/. There you also can report your bugs if you find any.

The only limitation in GUI mode at moment only 2 (but they are work in progress):

* no scrollbar support
* "replace" gui button doing nothing, it just need some more work by adding more dialogue windowses.
* some annoying empty window popup when run from workbench

To more understand how it all looks / feels like, you can just watch my youtube video (1920x1080 , no phone-camera-point-on-screen porn, real HD one):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBOuVuGUTZ0

But you should be sure, its not casual text editor. For use it you should know what you do and what VIM is. Because if not, very possible that you even will be not able to quit from the editor at all :)

How to run ...

1. Just unpack vim to any place you want.

2. Make an assign of VIM: to your_path/vim/runtime/ directory.
(You can not make that assign, and just run vim after unpacking, but then it will ask you to assign VIM: anyway, which you still need to point on your_path/vim/runtime/ directory). So better put something like this to your user-startup: Assign VIM: work:vim/runtime >NIL:

3. run "gvim" binary.

What about AmigaOS4 port ? ...

Ola 'sTix' Söder doing good job on making real MUI GUI for VIM as well as keeping whole amiga version of VIM be up2date. Originally he developed it for MorphOS and later for AROS, but now with some little effort we also have AmigaOS4 version too.

For making it works you need to have for your MUI installation "TheBar" custom class installed (that for all platforms), it is available there:

https://github.com/amiga-mui/thebar

Or you can grab it from os4depot there:

http://os4depot.net/share/library/mui/mcc_thebar.lha

Version of VIM for AmigaOS4 release is the same as last public released versions for MorphOS and AROS: 8.1.1099, just with some more bugs fixed and things added which will fits into next MorphOS/AROS releases as well, there they are:

-- fix: jumping between screens.
-- fix: remembering of window size/dimenstion when iconify and when exit.
-- fix: "the bar" class settings are visibly now in mui prefs when press "more" in general tab of mui settings.
-- fix: one more remove of unnecessary "home:" assignment.
-- added: Mason's icons (toolbars, main icons)
-- added: Support not only for plain toolbar icons, but also for selected ones and disabled ones.
-- added: workaround to have ability to run vim from workbench in gui mode without spawning of unnecessary empty output windowses.
-- changed: as there is no scrollbar support at moment, we disabled related entries from mui's menu till it implemented.


Do not forget that MUI is highly configurable ! ...

Some of you aware , but some are not. If MUI programm do not reacts as you wish, you offten can change the behaviour via mui settings (or only for programm you choice, or in whole, for all mui programms). I.e. if your window size/dimenstion do not stored on exit, but you wish it be so, then change in mui settings window/window_position_are/ to be "stored permanently". If you want to have 'embedded menu bar' at top, you always can it enable in mui settings menus/enable emdedded menu bar. If you want to change size of toolbar in VIM (or in any app which use TheBar class for toolbars), you always can go to mui settings, press "more" and in "the bar" class play with "spacing" options.

Just be sure you can change via mui settings a lot.


Final words ...

Big thanks to Ola 'sTix' Söder who doing it.
Big thanks to VIM community that they still keept amiga related code in original repo, even if those ifdefs recieved death messages about being removed as unnecessary.
Big thanks to Thore for never ended work on AOS4 version of MUI5.
Big thanks to Martin 'Mason' Merz for making a toolbar and main icons
Big thanks to Goos McGuile for pointing out how to fix some rendering bugs
Big thanks to all others who show interest in it!




This article comes from The Amigans website
https://www.amigans.net

The URL for this story is:
https://www.amigans.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2761