Yue VS VimMode.spoon

For a recent project I chose Yue (https://libyue.com/), a cross-platform native widget GUI toolkit with C++, JavaScript/Node.js, and Lua. I've only used the Lua interface and macOS backend, but it has worked quite well, despite the very steep learning curve. This was also my first desktop GUI app, so I had to learn many implicit concepts that weren't obvious from the otherwise extensive documentation.

Yue was also the only option that 1) supported macOS, 2) supported Lua, 3) was sufficiently comprehensive to build a non-toy GUI app, 4) and that I could integrate into my (static) build. I couldn't even get the wxWidgets Lua interfaces to compile, and Qt and Fltk had similar stories, whereas reverse-engineering the baroque Yue build (based on Google's internal build systems) was relatively simple. Yue had some sharp edges, but I was able to work around them whilst patiently waiting for patches and fixes upstream.

Immediate mode interfaces were a non-starter for me. For a non-trivial set of otherwise typical controls and window management you have to implement too much yourself, plus being non-native they not only felt wrong (which admittedly is somewhat subjective; the younger crowd seems to think non-native, immediate mode interfaces look more state-of-the-art), but lacked other interfaces for proper desktop integration, like theme change signaling (i.e. notification that a user switch between light and dark modes in the macOS system settings panel).

All-in-all I would highly recommend Yue.

I settled for Yue: https://github.com/yue/yue It's been around for several years. The deciding factor for me was that is has well maintained Lua bindings as part of the core project alongside JavaScript (Node.js) and C++.

I didn't have much luck with libui (crashes, missing features, etc), and various immediate mode alternatives just require too many dependencies and other work that made integration too painful. Plus, Lua bindings for all these were always stale. In fact, Lua binding quality is pretty poor all around including for GTK, Qt, WxWidgets, and FLTK.

There are many more JavaScript developers than C++ developers.

Personally I like Yue, a cross-platform native toolkit library: https://github.com/yue/yue But much of project was already using Lua, so Node.js and Electron were never viable solutions.

A native GUI library https://github.com/yue/yue.

It was a disaster when I announced it on Hacker News, and I got numerous harassments from strangers.

But anyway 2 years since then and I'm still working on it.

- https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon - Vim mode everywhere

VimMode.spoon (open source, free)

I have a Hammerspoon plugin that does a fairly decent job: https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon

A friend of mine I met through my own similar (free) library is developing this like a madman: https://kindavim.app

It costs $3/month (coffee) but for a Vim person like me I gladly pay. Making this work across macOS is a total mess and a full-time job, and it's not trivial work.

If you want a free version, I have https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon as a Hammerspoon plugin that works pretty OK, but I'm not actively developing it and prefer the kindaVim app at this point.

there's some free solutions out there like Karabiner-Elements(https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org) (but doesn't manipulate/calculate text, just key mapping) and VimMode.spoon (https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon). if you don't wanna bother with setting those up there's also one-time payment stuff, that are basically wrappers around Karabiner Elements.

I wrote this to handle a 2 letter key sequence being pressed (to support jk entering vim mode): https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon/blob/master/lib/key_sequence.lua

Love to see this windows project! If anyone wants some MacOS Vim functionality everywhere, I have a small library I maintain for that: https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon

Better solution: https://github.com/cknadler/vim-anywhere, for neovim users (and probably vim users) you can utilize some apple script as well: https://blog.schembri.me/post/neovim-everywhere-on-macos/. For those of you who want to try org-mode and evil, https://github.com/tecosaur/emacs-everywhere is awesome. And if you don't want to use an editor, a similar project (using Hammerspoon) is available here: https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon

and also let's not forget the awesome VimMode.spoon from dbalatero: https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon