Feature request: Native tabs

[tushar00jain]

Is it possible to support native tabs as shown here
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206998

[iain]

I feel like a kid asking for the most expensive Lego for Christmas, but if I could choose any style of tabs, it would look like iTerm:

[ActionScripted]

@tushar00jain, @iain are there specific features you're looking for with regards to native tabs? Would it just be to have the option of darker tabs and slightly updated UI/UX?

Native tabs don't have a lot in the way of customization and have a limited feature set.

iTerm2 isn't using native tabs. They're using a version of PSMTabBarControl that they've modified: https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2/tree/master/ThirdParty.

MacVim is using PSMTabBarControl too! It just doesn't have the same modifications: https://github.com/macvim-dev/macvim/tree/master/src/MacVim/PSMTabBarControl

I do think that with High Sierra the GUI code base could use an update as there are several legitimate issues like full screen not working, NSWindow errors, etc.

Perhaps part of that could be bringing over some features like a darker UI with dark tabs as an option.

(I'm a long-time web developer and am not very familiar with Objective C. I would love to help with MacVim development (and I'm learning) but please take these comments with a huge grain of salt.)

[tushar00jain]

@ActionScripted I would say what I would love to see is something more than just a darker tabs, although this would also be nice to have.

To give an analogy, one can open multiple tabs inside of iTerm, each of which run a different session of vim. However, this is currently not possible with MacVim. Opening a new tab in MacVim is native to vim in the sense that it just uses the same session with all tabs and all buffers can be accessed from any of the tabs.

To have multiple sessions of MacVim, one needs to open MacVim in a new window. I'm not sure which approach would be the easiest to approach this but it seems that OSX already supports opening multiple windows as tabs. If it helps, VS Code is doing exactly this with its native tabs feature.

[9mm]

Wow this would be awesome... how hard is it modify that to make it like iTerm?

[9mm]

Sorry to clarify -- regarding the dark color only. NOT about the functionality you mentioned about iTerm

[ychin]

#758 is a related issue. In this case native tabs were triggered inadvertently due to system settings.

[ychin]

Just as an update, #788 has officially turned off native tabs (it was actually previously turned on but it was buggy). I'll need to investigate if there's actually value in properly supporting native tabs (similar to VS code) before properly supporting it. There are at least a couple things that need to be fixed up including how the menus work, shortcut keys, and rendering artifacts that show up.

Just for reference some people here confused "native tabs" with dark tabs, which #791 did add (it will turn on when you turn on dark mode in Mojave). Native tabs refer to High Sierra's feature of grouping multiple distinct macOS windows into one tabbed window, so if we support it you will see two hierarchy of tabs. Each native Mac tab will be a window that runs a Vim instance, each still having its own Vim tabs. It's not a replacement for the normal Vim tabs.

[mvcouwen]

iTerm2 now has even better looks in my opinion. Requested the following similar feature: #962.

[eirnym]

@mvcouwen I personally agree with you. However, I know a few people who like toolbar and tab bar list separate.

[bitigchi]

This seems to be implemented. Using latest version on Catalina.

[9mm]

iTerm2 now has even better looks in my opinion. Requested the following similar feature: #962.

Dude if MacVim looked like that I literally would die and go to heaven...

@bitigchi so youre saying this is somehow implemented? How do I enable them?

[mvcouwen]

@9mm I think what @bitigchi means is that native tabs (in the sense of this feature request) are implemented. So I think this issue can be closed.
However, I would like to give the tabs another look. That is why I made a new feature request #962 . This has not yet been implemented.