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Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

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Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#141

Post by jwilm »

raphlinus wrote: post #114
c-smile wrote: post #98

"Platform text rendering (CoreText, DirectWrite) not performant enough" That above needs some reliable proof to be honest. I am testing this claim with Sciter ( https://sciter.com )... On Windows Sciter uses Direct2D/DirectWrite (with an option to render on DirectX device directly) and/or Skia/OpenGL. On Mac it uses Skia/OpenGL with an option to use CoreGraphics. On Linux Cairo or Skia/OpenGL. Here is full screen tex…

I'll have to try this out. My experiments indicated that DirectWrite could not keep up with drawing on a 4k monitor at 60 Hz, though was ok at a smaller window. I think it might depend a lot on driver too. I'll see if I can instrument the xi-win prototype to give performance numbers. I do note that your lines aren't very wide, but still, in my tests I wasn't seeing anything like 500fps. DirectWrite does at least seem…

> Skia is definitely capable of good performance, as it resolves down to OpenGL draw calls, pretty much the same as Alacritty, WebRender, and now xi-mac.

This claim is a bit surprising to me. I was under the impression Skia is an immediate mode renderer which ends up issuing a lot GL calls that could be avoided with a retained mode renderer.

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#142

Post by bowmessage »

eeks wrote: post #18
postit wrote: post #9

Xi creator did an amazing work implementing ropes ( https://github.com/google/xi-editor/tree/master/rust/rope ) The design documents ( https://github.com/google/xi-editor/tree/master/doc/rope_sci... ) explaining the concepts and implementation details is a must for those who want to understand its core. But I still have my regards regarding input latency being accredited only to the text editor. I recently switched b…

I must concur. With an equivalent vim setup and code files, nothing beats X11/suckless terminal on my OpenBSD machine. Comparing to that, even Alacritty looks like a slug. I must say however that things are looking a bit better in iTerm2 when switching the Metal renderer on. It's just a shame that an Nvidia GPU on OSX is necessary to compete with my $1000 Lenovo with its crappy Intel chip on OpenBSD when it comes to…

Thank you so much for mentioning the new experimental metal renderer feature. This has dramatically improved my development setup.

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#143

Post by patrickaljord »

pier25 wrote: post #128

Just today I was trying to edit a 15MB JSON file and it was so terribly slow with Sublime Text and wondered if there was something faster out there. Edit: So I built Xi-Mac and the file opens in a fraction vs ST3 but once it's open performance is just as bad or maybe even worse.

A 15MB json file is more like a mini database, it'd be faster to run a quick script to import it in a nosql json database and then query from there. It may take 5 minutes but then you won't want to throw yourself out of the window when trying to edit/query it.

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#144

Post by acoard »

jarpineh wrote: post #123
gnachman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTerm2's design is saddled by some history. At the time I took it over, everything was done in a single thread. By the time I realized I was going to stay with the project and how bad the design was, it was too late to change it. I've moved as much work as possible off the main thread (parsing the bytestream and now rendering). I think Terminal gets very nice performance without resorting to Metal by doing only UI wo…

I'll add my thank you. I'm also backer at Patreon. With tmux control mode it's already very good and now with faster rendering coming...

I've got an unrelated question about tmux/iTerm2 - hope you don't mind me asking.

I'm a heavy iTerm2 user and always been curious about tmux. Is there any reason to try out tmux integration if I'm already comfortable with iTerm2's features and panelling? I kind of got the impression tmux integration was largely for people who love tmux and are migrating to iTerm2, so it just makes it more familiar. Or is it something I should take another look at?

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#145

Post by racer-v »

raphlinus wrote: post #91
gradstudent wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please comment on Xi as a general editor and specifically in relation to vim and Emacs, arguably the two best general editors from the last few decades. Thanks!

I don't want to knock either, they're both obviously great editors. My main goal is to build something that feels entirely like a native app. Also, I'm hoping that the async model for plug-ins will preserve responsiveness even when there are a lot of plug-ins and they do nontrivial work.

As an Emacs diehard, I'll be quite tempted to give this a spin once the plug-in model integrates nicely with some Lisp implementation (e.g. SBCL), and someone sets up a repository along the lines of Emacs Lisp Package Archive (ELPA). Cool project!

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#146

Post by erk__ »

frou_dh wrote: post #102
cortesoft wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am guessing he works at a place that has a lot of servers that he connects to, and he wants to be able to use his editor on whatever server he is on. I know this is an issue where I work. We have 40 thousand plus servers, and we aren't going to have everyone install their editor of choice on all those machines. If I have an issue I need to check on a server that requires some text editing, I have to use one of the…

This is the appeal of sshfs - to be able to easily mount remote filesystems and use local tools against them.

One of the best tools I have used with something like this is emacs's tramp-mode. It just works when you connect to another host.

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#147

Post by cmyr »

zeveb wrote: post #137
cmyr wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we're using different definitions of "native". In the most common case, both of these editors use the cross-platform "VT-100 UI Toolkit" (e.g. ansi escape codes in your terminal emulator), regardless of platform. Some exceptions do exist. But native as it's being used in relation to this project refers specifically to whatever frontend framework is 'the standard' for a given platform, where one exists.

> > Emacs and vim are native apps. > In the most common case, both of these editors use the cross-platform "VT-100 UI Toolkit" (e.g. ansi escape codes in your terminal emulator), regardless of platform. I daresay that the single most common way to deploy emacs is as an X11 editor, followed by a macOS editor, followed by a vt100 console editor. Emacs is a fully GUI programme, and has been for decades at this point.

Okay fair point, my emacs experience is limited to installing spacemacs once while procrastinating.

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#148

Post by AceJohnny2 »

acoard wrote: post #144
jarpineh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add my thank you. I'm also backer at Patreon. With tmux control mode it's already very good and now with faster rendering coming...

I've got an unrelated question about tmux/iTerm2 - hope you don't mind me asking. I'm a heavy iTerm2 user and always been curious about tmux. Is there any reason to try out tmux integration if I'm already comfortable with iTerm2's features and panelling? I kind of got the impression tmux integration was largely for people who love tmux and are migrating to iTerm2, so it just makes it more familiar. Or is it something…

I use tmux with iTerm regularly, and it's my killer feature in iTerm.

I don't think there's much benefit to using tmux integration for a local shell, other than possibly long-lasting sessions that will survive iTerm itself crashing (and maybe you logging out? I'm not sure), which isn't enough of a problem for me to have to work around.

The awesome benefit for me is when using a remote tmux. Tmux integration works over SSH, so thanks to this I can have native-looking tabs and windows that are actually terminals on a remote machine. And if I get disconnected (frequent, with a laptop, as I'm moving around), I can reconnect and get all the remote windows just fine.

Gone are all the usual tmux C-b prefixes to managing windows, non-integrated scrolling, etc. Everything behaves like a normal iTerm window. I can even split/move panes like normal iTerm panes (though that crashed iTerm until about a year ago).

I have the following alias defined:

    ssh -t elf.example.com /opt/local/bin/tmux -u -CC attach
The -t is the SSH option to force pseudo-terminal allocation, which some versions of ssh fail to do when passing a command (in this case tmux) rather than starting a shell.

I'm specifying the /opt/local/bin version of tmux, because that's an updated one I've installed from MacPorts. Unfortunately Apple continues to bundle old versions of tmux in macOS, and last I checked the one that was bundled didn't actually support the Control Channel required by iTerm integration.

-u is a tmux option to force it in Unicode mode, required by iTerm's Tmux integration

-CC tells tmux to start a control channel and disable echo (required by iTerm's tmux integration)

`attach` attaches to the default session that I created prior.

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#149

Post by hultner »

acoard wrote: post #144
jarpineh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add my thank you. I'm also backer at Patreon. With tmux control mode it's already very good and now with faster rendering coming...

I've got an unrelated question about tmux/iTerm2 - hope you don't mind me asking. I'm a heavy iTerm2 user and always been curious about tmux. Is there any reason to try out tmux integration if I'm already comfortable with iTerm2's features and panelling? I kind of got the impression tmux integration was largely for people who love tmux and are migrating to iTerm2, so it just makes it more familiar. Or is it something…

I’d say it’s the opposite as an die hard tmux-user. I don’t really use the integration since I’m more comfortable with my terminal in full screen and my own tmux config. The integration services seems more appropriate for someone who doesn’t already have their tmux-bindings and workflow stamped into muscle memory but rather just want the benefits of detaching their terminal sessions from their terminal application while retaining iterm native tabs, windows and panes.

I’ve tried out the integration mode a few times but it just doesn’t fit my workflow (often switching sessions, highly customized tmux configuration, etc).

Re: Xi: an editor for the next 20 years [video]

#150

Post by cmyr »

patrickaljord wrote: post #143
pier25 wrote: post #128

Just today I was trying to edit a 15MB JSON file and it was so terribly slow with Sublime Text and wondered if there was something faster out there. Edit: So I built Xi-Mac and the file opens in a fraction vs ST3 but once it's open performance is just as bad or maybe even worse.

A 15MB json file is more like a mini database, it'd be faster to run a quick script to import it in a nosql json database and then query from there. It may take 5 minutes but then you won't want to throw yourself out of the window when trying to edit/query it.

There's no technical reason you shouldn't be able to happily scroll through (and edit) a 15MB json file; and search for an arbitrary string should take ~10ms (ballpark from playing around with ripgrep just now), certainly not slow enough to merit big up front indexing costs.
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