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What we need is a web deliverable (i.e. not a "web technology based" Electron desktop app) Neovim frontend. Something like a Wasm & WebGL based UI layer connected via msgpack to the editor core that's running in a sandbox on GitLab's infrastructure.

I'm truly sorry if the above drivel is either impossible or insane; as an embedded guy this is most definitely way outside my wheelhouse. I should get back to repairing my oscilloscope.

4 comments

If it's informative and empowers your thinking:

WebGL is more or less just a set of standardized (JavaScript) bindings to OpenGL ES... which is actually ran as DirectX I'm sure in some places...

Everything required to draw high-performance hardware accelerated text already exists in most browsers before even getting to these bindings, which would furthermore require accessing a redundant glyph renderer.

That is to say, WebGL wouldn't provide you much gain. Though, I'm sure some very amusing post-processing could then be done to your code.

Perhaps the future of programming is in the web with lens flare.

Why do we "need" this? It sounds overly complex and error-prone.

Just read the last part of their post, and you will understand.

http://coolwanglu.github.io/vim.js/streamlinejs/vim.html

Network latency would hurt. Maybe you could compile neovim backend to wasm instead and run it sandwiches in the browser as well.