On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 05:12:33PM +0000, Maxim Abalenkov <maxim.abalen...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all, > > How are you? I hope all is well with you. I need your help please. I > mostly work in the terminal and use vim as my text editor. But > occasionally I need a text editor with a graphical user interface. I > have heard good things about ‘gvim’. Would you please tell me, how > to install ‘gvim’ with MacPorts? Is it one of the ‘vim’ port’s > variants? Executing > > port variants vim > > returns multiple options: > > * athena: Build GUI version using Athena widgets > * gtk2: Build GUI version using GTK 2.x widgets > * gtk3: Build GUI version using GTK 3.x widgets > * motif: Build GUI version with Motif widgets > > Can you please tell me, how do they differ and which one would you > recommend? Thank you for your help and have a good weekend ahead! > > — > Best wishes, > Maxim > > Maxim Abalenkov \\ maxim.abalen...@gmail.com > +44 7 486 486 505 \\ www.maxim.abalenkov.uk Hi, I think that Vim has abandoned Athena widgets in favour of Motif. They are very similar. Both look old compared to gtk2/gtk3 but have the advantage that they respect Xresources settings. This matters if you have configured gvim with Xresources, for example to specify a forced window size and location, rather than having the window manager decide or force the user to manually place windows every time. So, if you want to have your gvim window appear in the same location every time, choose motif. If not, probably choose gtk3. I don't know anything about differences between gtk2 and gtk3. However, all of these require X11. If you don't want X11, there is another choice: MacVim which is a port that uses a macOS native GUI library. But that's not a good choice if you use X11 in full screen mode. I use an Athena (or sometimes Motif) gvim that I compiled myself for use in full screen X11, and MacVim for use in the macOS native desktop. cheers, raf
