
VimR – Refined Vim Experience for OS X - jasonrdsouza
http://vimr.org/
======
rjzzleep
For those confused, this project uses a fork of macvim that the author himself
turned into a framework(osx library) to be used in third party programs. [1]

(Kinda how some linux projects used xembed to embed gvim into their apps,
eclim also used to have a mode to embed gvim into eclipse)

Think of it as a proof of concept implementation for a vim editor based on the
macvim framework version. At worst, you don't really give a crap. At best you
can use this in your own editor/ide/debugger/whatever.

The wording not emulated as mentioned in a post below is in reference to vi
emulation in eclipse/idea/sublime/atom/xvim or one of the other 1000 editors
that have vi keybindings.

Ps. I'm not affiliated in any way, I still use tmux and console vim, but I've
been following this project for a while.

[1] [https://github.com/qvacua/macvim](https://github.com/qvacua/macvim)

~~~
jaseemabid
Thank you. I was really wondering what is so special about a GUI vim. I
thought that exited for a while.

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ndreynolds
I love the idea. I use terminal Vim as my daily editor, and could see myself
switching (at least part-time) to something like this.

Yes, you can achieve all this using plugins like NERDTree and Ctrl-p, but
sometimes a polished GUI just provides a better experience than any ncurses-
based interface can. And you're not giving anything up in the process—you can
still open NERDTree from VimR if you want to.

Hope the negativity here isn't discouraging. I'm really excited to see where
this project goes.

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peterhajas
As an avid MacVim user, I'm really interested in people pushing the graphical
vim experience on Mac OS X.

I find it interesting that you included a fuzzy quick-open. One of the pain
points with CtrlP in a large project - even with fast hardware - is the
synchronous building of its filesystem cache. I would be interested in trying
another implementation that lives inside of an app (where it can be dispatched
asynchronously).

All in all, a nice looking app! I'm interested in giving it a shot!

~~~
mmahemoff
Ctrl-p is great but I agree, lack of caching is a signigicant pain point. I
raised an issue on that and the author explained it's because there's actually
no mechanism for Vimscript to do it, so someone would probably need to come up
with some way to spawn headless Vim from a periodic Cronjob. A standalone app
like VimR can also route around this constraint.

[https://github.com/kien/ctrlp.vim/issues/222](https://github.com/kien/ctrlp.vim/issues/222)

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bloddyfool
Wow, 1 hour and not one positive comment. I love this. For an user getting
started with vim, just the mac-like design for sidebar and File finder is a
million times useful.

Thanks Guys for making this!

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stevenleeg
Damn, I'm sorry there have been so many haters here. Looks like a really cool
project and you should totally keep working on it to make it even more
appealing over something like MacVim. Excellent job guys!

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poolpool
I love the negativity in many of the responses here. Obviously people like
native apps. Macvim is a thing. Emacs has a gui version for os x. Sublime is a
thing. This is a polished port of macvim that has a file drawer, which is a
feature that many people want baked into macvim. Browsing complex file
hierarchies and large projects isn't great inside a terminal, and is a giant
hurdle for many new users of vim.

If this isn't for you then fine but don't rush here to proudly proclaim how
you don't understand the point of this. I don't know why anyone submits their
pet projects here.

~~~
tosbourn
Hope you don't mind poolpool but I quoted you in a quick writeup I made of
VimR.

[http://tosbourn.com/vimr-first-look/](http://tosbourn.com/vimr-first-look/)

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kuon
This looks very promising. I use MacVim daily and being able to extend the GUI
(like the markdown plugin) sounds awesome.

I already see tons of possible plugin. A simple one would be to have a webkit
window which reloads the page when working on a web project, with javascript
bindings on the webkit window there is a lot of potential.

Or an OpenGL shader preview for real time GLSL editing.

Could also be simply a documentation browser.

There are many tools I'd like to integrate more with my editor.

To all the haters, use your imagination, it's much more than just vim in the
terminal. And I'm well aware that I can have a gazillion window open (web
browser, doc browser, shader preview, game window...), but this kind of
integration can improve productivity and reduce frustrations.

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mundanevoice
Looks pretty neat. Good work folks. I wrote a blog post sometime back to setup
macvim that looks exactly same as your projects. Good thing is that I don't
have to do all that hard work to set it up and just use yours instead. :) Here
is that blog post. [http://vinitkumar.me/articles/2014/01/03/Setup-Macvim-for-
ma...](http://vinitkumar.me/articles/2014/01/03/Setup-Macvim-for-maximum-
awesomeness/)

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truantbuick
Sorry, is the vim that ships with OS X consider emulated?

~~~
mcmire
I think that was a reference to MacVim, maybe?

~~~
woogley
This project uses the MacvimFramework. It might be a dig at Sublime/Atom's re-
implementation of Vim keybindings

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segphault
As a MacVim user, I find this intriguing. It seems to work very well for my
needs. I particularly like the built-in Markdown preview.

My only gripe so far is that I'd like to be able to configure additional
filtering for the fuzzy file find to, for example, make it automatically
ignore node_modules folders.

~~~
qvacua
Thanks. The "ignore list" for the fuzzy find will be implemented soooon.

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fra
Hey, there are some great things in here. I've used it for a bit this morning,
and have a couple of comments:

1\. I could not figure out how to change the font. I'd love a smaller font.

2\. The "show" and "hide" side bar shortcuts should be merged into a single
"toggle" shortcut

3\. Generally, shortcuts should be more vim-y. If I wanted to do cmd + } I
would be using emacs :)

4\. could not find a keyboard shortcut to change focus from the editor to the
sidebar, so I have to use my mouse there (bad).

5\. Quick open does not have vim-like navigation. So I need to use the arrows
to select a file in the list. Also, is there a way to set an ignore list?
(e.g. ignore all the object files).

6\. Long term, it would be amazing if gui actions could be tied to keyboard
shortcuts via the vimrc.

~~~
dnerdy
Thanks for the feedback! ⌘1 is what you want to focus the sidebar, and <Esc>
will take you back to your buffer. We're working on some improvements to the
View menu.

~~~
fra
That works! Thanks! Looking forward to the next round of improvements.

~~~
qvacua
We will soon document all key shortcuts in the wiki on GitHub.

------
otikik
I am missing a "Why should I use this instead of MacVim?" section on that
website.

~~~
qvacua
I tried to explain it in: * [http://ishouldcocoa.net/post/85242609106/why-
vimr](http://ishouldcocoa.net/post/85242609106/why-vimr) *
[http://ishouldcocoa.net/post/91765853571/some-thoughts-on-
vi...](http://ishouldcocoa.net/post/91765853571/some-thoughts-on-vimr)

------
qvacua
Thank you for your comments. Please bear in mind that VimR is still very much
work in progress: it's got still rough edges here and there. With your
comments and feedback we will try to polish it and add new features. Stay
tuned. :)

~~~
SiVal
Okay, here's some feedback: you mention that you're using "real" vim, yet
refer to the file browser controls as that "hjkl" thing. No app that isn't vim
or isn't trying to partially resemble vim has used that obsolete "uh, down
means up, so left means down" hjkl arrowkey arrangement for decades. Everyone
else, all apps, spreadsheets, games, other text editors, including all
standard hardware, uses an inverted-T arrangement for arrowkeys.

So, no problem, vim lets you remap your keys, which takes care of the problem.
Many of us remap the "arrowkeys on the home row" to the standard inverted-T of
ijkl (and remap i, for insert left, to h, reach left instead of reaching up),
so that both sets of arrowkeys on the keyboard match each other and match
their arrangement in every other app we use. Those with other keyboards, such
as Dvorak, will often map to different keys that make more sense on their own
keyboards. The ability to do so has always been one of the features of "real
vi(m)".

I hope that for your file browser, you'll pass the keypresses through the
(g)vimrc map, so that whatever keys a user has chosen for up, down, left,
right, escape, and whatever else the file browser handles, will work the same
way in both the editor and the file browser, which is to say, the way their
"real vim" works.

------
itry
Does anybody know how to really close a tab in vim? When I type t on a file to
open it in a tab and then type :q, it looks like ist closed. But when I type
:ls I see that its still open.

~~~
profil
When you write `:ls` you see all the buffers, not tabs. To remove the buffer
you can use `:bd :bdel :bdelete` (see `:help :bdel`) which unloads a buffer
and deletes it from the bugger list.

~~~
itry
Sure. But I want to close the buffer AND the tab. :bd only closes the tab if
there are multiple tabs open. It does not close the tab when its the last tab
before the file explorer:

1) in the shell run "vim ."

2) hit "t" on a file

3) type ":bd<enter>"

You still have 2 tabs open. One with the file explorer and one with an empty
file. Probably because the file explorer has type "nofile" or something, so
vim things the buffer you just closed was the last one. Im not sure why its
not closing the tab. It might be a bug.

Is there a way to tell vim "When I type :bd close the frickin tab, even if its
the last one!"?

~~~
mackwic
Yes, see my other answer here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8187723](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8187723)

------
intothev01d
This is great! I like the fact that there is a gui with menu bar commands,
ability to navigate folders , etc. to fall back on. Is there any way to open
it via the terminal like sublime or atom? It would be great if it could launch
from a directory with all of the contents showing in the sidebar

------
swah
Installed MacVim the other day, first thing I run into "MacVim.app doesn't
show up in spotlight"
([https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/8970](https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/8970))

------
golergka
On one hand, I really want to leave a constructive comment, but on the other,
I don't think that I should use it first for a few days (and judging by my
first impressions, coming from macvim, I definitely will). By the way, did all
the haters test it thoroughly?

------
atmosx
Doesn't work for me on either macbook or imac, running mavericks.

~~~
mikewhy
Same here. Trying to create a new file or open an existing one results in a
crash.

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FreakyT
I love this idea! I've wanted to get into MacVIM but I am just too addicted to
the file browser sidebar that Sublime and Atom have. I'll have to give this a
shot.

~~~
ovechtrick
Checkout nerdtree. File browser/sidebar for Vim.

[https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree](https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree)

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FootballMuse
What other keyboard shortcuts are available other than hjkl? It looks not even
the arrow keys work.

~~~
dnerdy
There are quite a few, and they're documented on the wiki[1].

If you find that there's a specific feature missing, please open an issue. All
feedback is appreciated :) This is still very much a work in progress.

[1] [https://github.com/qvacua/vimr/wiki/File-Browser-
Actions](https://github.com/qvacua/vimr/wiki/File-Browser-Actions)

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jamra
It would be awesome if you could add in some kind of package manager like
sublime text has.

~~~
dguaraglia
Wouldn't Vundle work just as well on this? Vundle is pretty decent for
installing plugins.

~~~
Artemis2
Vundle is great, there is Pathogen too.

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toblender
This is awesome! Going to give it a proper run Monday.

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nicolasd
Looks great, I'll check it out

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toisanji
could be pretty good with more polish

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darkFunction
Good work!

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andyl
I have low enthusiasm for this project because I don't see a big added-value
above NerdTree and CtrlP.

But I would love to see more cross-platform Gui wrappers and more embedded
Vim. I'm hopeful that NeoVim will help make this happen.

NeoVim seems to be making really good progress. There are packages for
installing on OSX and Linux. In my daily use NeoVim has been solid. I love the
direction that NeoVim is taking, and believe it will be a great foundation for
embedded vim.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Title should be "VimR: Refined Vim Experience for OS X" not "Vim for OS X".

~~~
jasonrdsouza
Sorry. One of my first posts to HN. Updated.

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diggan
I fail to see how this is better than to use gvim, which is crossplatform,
together with NERDTree, CTRL+p + some other language specific plugins that can
run on your server, on your desktop (which can be windows, linux or osx,
whatever you like).

Feels like the authors effort would be better spent on helping some project
like NeoVim instead.
[https://github.com/neovim/neovim](https://github.com/neovim/neovim)

~~~
tylermac1
Did you even use it?

~~~
diggan
I can't ask questions if I haven't used it? I have no interest of trying this
out since it's mac exclusive.

~~~
tylermac1
You didn't ask a question. You suggested that the author's effort was
misguided for an application you didn't even use.

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fred_durst
ugh more OSX embrace extend extinguish. Apple doesn't even have to pay people
to write more lock in anymore.

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fdsary
So, in what way is it better than vim inside tmux? NERDtree and CTRL-p and
you're good to go.

