macvim-dev / macvim-dev/macvim

Implement Metal renderer for MacVim

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Investigation Renderer
Dominant language
Vim Script
Stars
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Forks
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PR merge metrics
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Description

We should implement a Metal-based text renderer for MacVim. #858 fixed a lot of the issues with the previous way MacVim rendered text and laid the grounds work by storing the buffer of the text so it could be redrawn. However, it is not as fast as it could be because it relies on software rendering and on scrolling (or other events) it needs to redraw quite a fair amount of texts, leading to scrolling not being as smooth as it could be.

Implementing a proper Metal renderer would allow us to get the native scrolling performance back as it's trivial to submit redraws.

There are also other downstream features (some in experimentation) that would need the Metal renderer to work properly. For example, if we want per-pixel scrolling (#273), we need a high-enough frame rate to be able to generate a smooth animation. Other special animation effects such as locating cursors, or cursor animations would all benefit from a Metal renderer.

Also see #1259 for performance issue with it.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the rendering work described in issue #858 and the performance concern in #1259, then inspect the current MacVim software-rendering path. The issue is done when a Metal-based renderer supports smooth native scrolling and provides the rendering foundation needed by the downstream animation features mentioned here.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
macos, vim
Domain
computer-graphics, desktop, performance
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
22/100

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