Problem: completion: complete_match() Vim script function and
'isexpand' option are not that useful and confusing
(after v9.1.1341)
Solution: Remove function and option and clean up code and documentation
(Girish Palya).
complete_match() and 'isexpand' add no real functionality to Vim. They
duplicate what `strridx()` already does, yet pretend to be part of the
completion system. They have nothing to do with the completion mechanism.
* `f_complete_match()` in `insexpand.c` does not call any completion code.
It’s just a `STRNCMP()` wrapper with fluff logic.
* `'isexpand'` exists only as a proxy argument to that function.
It does nothing on its own and amounts to misuse of a new option.
The following Vim script function can be used to implement the same
functionality:
```vim
func CompleteMatch(triggers, sep=',')
let line = getline('.')->strpart(0, col('.') - 1)
let result = []
for trig in split(a:triggers, a:sep)
let idx = strridx(line, trig)
if l:idx >= 0
call add(result, [idx + 1, trig])
endif
endfor
return result
endfunc
```
related: vim/vim#16716fixes: vim/vim#18563closes: vim/vim#18790cbcbff8712
Co-authored-by: Girish Palya <girishji@gmail.com>
Problem: completion: 'completefuzzycollect' option is too obscure
Solution: Deprecate the option, but don't error out for existing scripts,
behave like 'completefuzzycollect' is set when fuzzy
completion is enabled (Girish Palya).
fixes: vim/vim#18498closes: vim/vim#1878833fbfe003c
Remove this option completely, as it's introduced in Nvim v0.12 cycle.
Co-authored-by: Girish Palya <girishji@gmail.com>
Problem:
Popup menu cannot have a border.
Solution:
Support 'pumborder' option.
Generalize `win_redr_border` to `grid_redr_border`,
which redraws border for window grid and pum grid.
Problem: MS-Windows: not possible to highlight the title bar
Solution: Make the title/caption bar configurable by introducing the
'go-C' option value which allows to highlight it using the
TitleBar and TitleBarNC highlighting groups (Mao-Yining).
Introduce titlebar color customization for Windows 11 GUI through
highlight groups and new 'guioptions' flag:
- Add 'C' flag to enable titlebar color customization (opt-in)
- New highlight groups: TitleBar (active) and TitleBarNC (inactive)
- Uses DWMWA_CAPTION_COLOR and DWMWA_TEXT_COLOR DWM attributes
- Dynamically loads dwmapi.dll for Windows 11 compatibility
- Defaults to system colors when set to NONE or feature disabled
closes: vim/vim#184492c09368273
Co-authored-by: Mao-Yining <mao.yining@outlook.com>
Problem: complete: preinsert does not work well with preinsert
Solution: Make "preinsert" completeopt value work with autocompletion
(Girish Palya)
This change extends Insert mode autocompletion so that 'preinsert' also
works when 'autocomplete' is enabled.
Try: `:set ac cot=preinsert`
See `:help 'cot'` for more details.
closes: vim/vim#18213fa6fd41a94
Co-authored-by: Girish Palya <girishji@gmail.com>
Problem: completion: not possible to delay the autcompletion
Solution: add the 'autocompletedelay' option value (Girish Palya).
This patch introduces a new global option 'autocompletedelay'/'acl' that
specifies the delay, in milliseconds, before the autocomplete menu
appears after typing.
When set to a non-zero value, Vim waits for the specified time before
showing the completion popup, allowing users to reduce distraction from
rapid suggestion pop-ups or to fine-tune the responsiveness of
completion.
The default value is 0, which preserves the current immediate-popup
behavior.
closes: vim/vim#17960a09b1604d4
N/A patch: vim-patch:9.1.1641: a few compiler warnings are output
Co-authored-by: Girish Palya <girishji@gmail.com>
These are not needed after #35129 but making uncrustify still play nice
with them was a bit tricky.
Unfortunately `uncrustify --update-config-with-doc` breaks strings
with backslashes. This issue has been reported upstream,
and in the meanwhile auto-update on every single run has been disabled.
Problem: cannot perform autocompletion
Solution: Add the 'autocomplete' option value
(Girish Palya)
This change introduces the 'autocomplete' ('ac') boolean option to
enable automatic popup menu completion during insert mode. When enabled,
Vim shows a completion menu as you type, similar to pressing |i\_CTRL-N|
manually. The items are collected from sources defined in the
'complete' option.
To ensure responsiveness, this feature uses a time-sliced strategy:
- Sources earlier in the 'complete' list are given more time.
- If a source exceeds its allocated timeout, it is interrupted.
- The next source is then started with a reduced timeout (exponentially
decayed).
- A small minimum ensures every source still gets a brief chance to
contribute.
The feature is fully compatible with other |i_CTRL-X| completion modes,
which can temporarily suspend automatic completion when triggered.
See :help 'autocomplete' and :help ins-autocompletion for more details.
To try it out, use :set ac
You should see a popup menu appear automatically with suggestions. This
works seamlessly across:
- Large files (multi-gigabyte size)
- Massive codebases (:argadd thousands of .c or .h files)
- Large dictionaries via the `k` option
- Slow or blocking LSP servers or user-defined 'completefunc'
Despite potential slowness in sources, the menu remains fast,
responsive, and useful.
Compatibility: This mode is fully compatible with existing completion
methods. You can still invoke any CTRL-X based completion (e.g.,
CTRL-X CTRL-F for filenames) at any time (CTRL-X temporarily
suspends 'autocomplete'). To specifically use i_CTRL-N, dismiss the
current popup by pressing CTRL-E first.
---
How it works
To keep completion snappy under all conditions, autocompletion uses a
decaying time-sliced algorithm:
- Starts with an initial timeout (80ms).
- If a source does not complete within the timeout, it's interrupted and
the timeout is halved for the next source.
- This continues recursively until a minimum timeout (5ms) is reached.
- All sources are given a chance, but slower ones are de-prioritized
quickly.
Most of the time, matches are computed well within the initial window.
---
Implementation details
- Completion logic is mostly triggered in `edit.c` and handled in
insexpand.c.
- Uses existing inc_compl_check_keys() mechanism, so no new polling
hooks are needed.
- The completion system already checks for user input periodically; it
now also checks for timer expiry.
---
Design notes
- The menu doesn't continuously update after it's shown to prevent
visual distraction (due to resizing) and ensure the internal list
stays synchronized with the displayed menu.
- The 'complete' option determines priority—sources listed earlier get
more time.
- The exponential time-decay mechanism prevents indefinite collection,
contributing to low CPU usage and a minimal memory footprint.
- Timeout values are intentionally not configurable—this system is
optimized to "just work" out of the box. If autocompletion feels slow,
it typically indicates a deeper performance bottleneck (e.g., a slow
custom function not using `complete_check()`) rather than a
configuration issue.
---
Performance
Based on testing, the total roundtrip time for completion is generally
under 200ms. For common usage, it often responds in under 50ms on an
average laptop, which falls within the "feels instantaneous" category
(sub-100ms) for perceived user experience.
| Upper Bound (ms) | Perceived UX
|----------------- |-------------
| <100 ms | Excellent; instantaneous
| <200 ms | Good; snappy
| >300 ms | Noticeable lag
| >500 ms | Sluggish/Broken
---
Why this belongs in core:
- Minimal and focused implementation, tightly integrated with existing
Insert-mode completion logic.
- Zero reliance on autocommands and external scripting.
- Makes full use of Vim’s highly composable 'complete' infrastructure
while avoiding the complexity of plugin-based solutions.
- Gives users C native autocompletion with excellent responsiveness and
no configuration overhead.
- Adds a key UX functionality in a simple, performant, and Vim-like way.
closes: vim/vim#17812af9a7a04f1
Co-authored-by: Girish Palya <girishji@gmail.com>
Problem: not possible to anchor specific lines in diff mode
Solution: Add support for the anchoring lines in diff mode using the
'diffanchor' option (Yee Cheng Chin).
Adds support for anchoring specific lines to each other while viewing a
diff. While lines are anchored, they are guaranteed to be aligned to
each other in a diff view, allowing the user to control and inform the
diff algorithm what the desired alignment is. Internally, this is done
by splitting up the buffer at each anchor and run the diff algorithm on
each split section separately, and then merge the results back for a
logically consistent diff result.
To do this, add a new "diffanchors" option that takes a list of
`{address}`, and a new "diffopt" option value "anchor". Each address
specified will be an anchor, and the user can choose to use any type of
address, including marks, line numbers, or pattern search. Anchors are
sorted by line number in each file, and it's possible to have multiple
anchors on the same line (this is useful when doing multi-buffer diff).
Update documentation to provide examples.
This is similar to Git diff's `--anchored` flag. Other diff tools like
Meld/Araxis Merge also have similar features (called "synchronization
points" or "synchronization links"). We are not using Git/Xdiff's
`--anchored` implementation here because it has a very limited API
(it requires usage of the Patience algorithm, and can only anchor
unique lines that are the same across both files).
Because the user could anchor anywhere, diff anchors could result in
adjacent diff blocks (one block is directly touching another without a
gap), if there is a change right above the anchor point. We don't want
to merge these diff blocks because we want to line up the change at the
anchor. Adjacent diff blocks were first allowed when linematch was
added, but the existing code had a lot of branched paths where
line-matched diff blocks were handled differently. As a part of this
change, refactor them to have a more unified code path that is
generalized enough to handle adjacent diff blocks correctly and without
needing to carve in exceptions all over the place.
closes: vim/vim#176150d9160e11c
Co-authored-by: Yee Cheng Chin <ychin.git@gmail.com>
Problem:
Cannot use `nvim_open_term()` to pipe terminal scrollback > 100000
Solution:
Increase scrollback limit to 1000000
If there's no technical consequences of doing this, can be set even
higher in the future.
Problem: The maximum search count uses a hard-coded value of 99
(Andres Monge, Joschua Kesper)
Solution: Make it configurable using the 'maxsearchcount' option.
related: vim/vim#8855fixes: vim/vim#17527closes: vim/vim#17695b7b7fa04bf
Co-authored-by: Christian Brabandt <cb@256bit.org>
Problem: File paths change from symlink to target path after :cd command
when editing files through symbolic links
Solution: Add "~" flag to 'cpoptions' to control symlink resolution.
When not included (default), symlinks are resolved maintaining
backward compatibility. When included, symlinks are preserved
providing the improved behavior. (glepnir)
related: neovim/neovim#15695closes: vim/vim#176284ade668fb6
clarify complete_match() documentation to better explain its backward
search behavior, argument handling, and return value format and add an
example of isexpand
closes: https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/17212ffc89e47d0
Problem: Cannot define completion triggers and act upon it
Solution: add the new option 'isexpand' and add the complete_match()
function to return the completion matches according to the
'isexpand' setting (glepnir)
Currently, completion trigger position is determined solely by the
'iskeyword' pattern (\k\+$), which causes issues when users need
different completion behaviors - such as triggering after '/' for
comments or '.' for methods. Modifying 'iskeyword' to include these
characters has undesirable side effects on other Vim functionality that
relies on keyword definitions.
Introduce a new buffer-local option 'isexpand' that allows specifying
different completion triggers and add the complete_match() function that
finds the appropriate start column for completion based on these
triggers, scanning backwards from cursor position.
This separation of concerns allows customized completion behavior
without affecting iskeyword-dependent features. The option's
buffer-local nature enables per-filetype completion triggers.
closes: vim/vim#16716bcd5995b40
Co-authored-by: glepnir <glephunter@gmail.com>
Problem: cannot set the maximum popup menu width
(Lucas Mior)
Solution: add the new global option value 'pummaxwidth'
(glepnir)
fixes: vim/vim#10901closes: vim/vim#1694388d75934c3
Co-authored-by: glepnir <glephunter@gmail.com>
Problem: Diff mode's inline highlighting is lackluster. It only
performs a line-by-line comparison, and calculates a single
shortest range within a line that could encompass all the
changes. In lines with multiple changes, or those that span
multiple lines, this approach tends to end up highlighting
much more than necessary.
Solution: Implement new inline highlighting modes by doing per-character
or per-word diff within the diff block, and highlight only the
relevant parts, add "inline:simple" to the defaults (which is
the old behaviour)
This change introduces a new diffopt option "inline:<type>". Setting to
"none" will disable all inline highlighting, "simple" (the default) will
use the old behavior, "char" / "word" will perform a character/word-wise
diff of the texts within each diff block and only highlight the
differences.
The new char/word inline diff only use the internal xdiff, and will
respect diff options such as algorithm choice, icase, and misc iwhite
options. indent-heuristics is always on to perform better sliding.
For character highlight, a post-process of the diff results is first
applied before we show the highlight. This is because a naive diff will
create a result with a lot of small diff chunks and gaps, due to the
repetitive nature of individual characters. The post-process is a
heuristic-based refinement that attempts to merge adjacent diff blocks
if they are separated by a short gap (1-3 characters), and can be
further tuned in the future for better results. This process results in
more characters than necessary being highlighted but overall less visual
noise.
For word highlight, always use first buffer's iskeyword definition.
Otherwise if each buffer has different iskeyword settings we would not
be able to group words properly.
The char/word diffing is always per-diff block, not per line, meaning
that changes that span multiple lines will show up correctly.
Added/removed newlines are not shown by default, but if the user has
'list' set (with "eol" listchar defined), the eol character will be be
highlighted correctly for the specific newline characters.
Also, add a new "DiffTextAdd" highlight group linked to "DiffText" by
default. It allows color schemes to use different colors for texts that
have been added within a line versus modified.
This doesn't interact with linematch perfectly currently. The linematch
feature splits up diff blocks into multiple smaller blocks for better
visual matching, which makes inline highlight less useful especially for
multi-line change (e.g. a line is broken into two lines). This could be
addressed in the future.
As a side change, this also removes the bounds checking introduced to
diff_read() as they were added to mask existing logic bugs that were
properly fixed in vim/vim#16768.
closes: vim/vim#168819943d4790e
Co-authored-by: Yee Cheng Chin <ychin.git@gmail.com>
Problem:
There is currently no global option to define the default border style for floating windows. This leads to repetitive code when developers need consistent styling across multiple floating windows.
Solution:
Introduce a global option winborder to specify the default border style for floating windows. When a floating window is created without explicitly specifying a border style, the value of the winborder option will be used. This simplifies configuration and ensures consistency in floating window appearance.
Co-authored-by: Gregory Anders <greg@gpanders.com>
Problem: Combined highlighting was not applied to nvim_eval_statusline(),
and 'statuscolumn' sign segment/numhl highlights.
Solution: Add an additional `groups` element to the return value of
`nvim_eval_statusline()->highlights`. This is an array of stacked
highlight groups (highest priority last). Also resolve combined
highlights for the 'statuscolumn' sign segment/numhl highlights.
Expose/synchronize some drawline.c logic that is now mimicked in
three different places.
Problem: ComplMatchIns highlight hard to read on light background
(after v9.1.0996)
Solution: define the highlighting group cleared, it should be configured in
colorschemes separately (glepnir)
closes: vim/vim#16414ad409876d9
Co-authored-by: glepnir <glephunter@gmail.com>
When a terminal application running inside the terminal emulator sets
the cursor shape or blink status of the cursor, update the cursor in the
parent terminal to match.
This removes the "virtual cursor" that has been in use by the terminal
emulator since the beginning. The original rationale for using the
virtual cursor was to avoid having to support additional UI methods to
change the cursor color for other (non-TUI) UIs, instead relying on the
TermCursor and TermCursorNC highlight groups.
The TermCursor highlight group is now used in the default 'guicursor'
value, which has a new entry for Terminal mode. However, the
TermCursorNC highlight group is no longer supported: since terminal
windows now use the real cursor, when the window is not focused there is
no cursor displayed in the window at all, so there is nothing to
highlight. Users can still use the StatusLineTermNC highlight group to
differentiate non-focused terminal windows.
BREAKING CHANGE: The TermCursorNC highlight group is no longer supported.
Problem: Variable name for 'messagesopt' doesn't match short name
(after v9.1.0908)
Solution: Change p_meo to p_mopt. Add more details to docs.
closes: vim/vim#161828cc43daee1
Problem: Option metadata like list of valid values for an option and
option flags are not listed in the `options.lua` file and are instead
manually defined in C, which means option metadata is split between
several places.
Solution: Put metadata such as list of valid values for an option and
option flags in `options.lua`, and autogenerate the corresponding C
variables and enums.
Supersedes #28659
Co-authored-by: glepnir <glephunter@gmail.com>
Problem: message history is fixed to 200
Solution: Add the 'msghistory' option, increase the default
value to 500 (Shougo Matsushita)
closes: vim/vim#160484bd9b2b246
Co-authored-by: Shougo Matsushita <Shougo.Matsu@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Milly <milly.ca@gmail.com>
Problem:
There are three different ways of marking an option as hidden, `enable_if
= false`, `hidden = true` and `immutable = true`. These also have different
behaviors. Options hidden with `enable_if = false` can't have their value
fetched using Vim script or the API, but options hidden with `hidden = true` or
`immutable = true` can. On the other hand, options with `hidden = true` do not
error when trying to set their value, but options with `immutable = true` do.
Solution:
Remove `enable_if = false`, remove the `hidden` property for options, and use
`immutable = true` to mark an option as hidden instead. Also make hidden option
variable pointers always point to the default value, which allows fetching the
value of every hidden option using Vim script and the API. This does also mean
that trying to set a hidden option will now give an error instead of just being
ignored.
Problem: 'findexpr' can't be used for lambads
(Justin Keyes)
Solution: Replace the findexpr option with the findfunc option
(Yegappan Lakshmanan)
related: vim/vim#15905closes: vim/vim#15976a13f3a4f5d
Co-authored-by: Yegappan Lakshmanan <yegappan@yahoo.com>
Problem: Currently we use macros with hardcoded flag values for option flags, which is messy and requires a lot of mental math for adding / removing option flags. Using macros for option flags also means that they cannot be used inside debuggers.
Solution: Create a new `OptFlags` enum that stores all the option flags in an organized way that is easier to understand.
Instead of keeping `P_ALLOCED` and `P_DEF_ALLOCED` flags to check if an
option value is allocated, always allocate option values to simplify the
logic.
Ref: #25672
vim-patch:8.2.4744: a terminal window can't use the bell
vim-patch:8.2.4745: using wrong flag for using bell in the terminal
BREAKING CHANGE: Bells from :terminal are now silent by default, unless
'belloff' option doesn't contain "term" or "all".
Problem: fixed order of items in insert-mode completion menu
Solution: Introduce the 'completeitemalign' option with default
value "abbr,kind,menu" (glepnir).
Adding an new option `completeitemalign` abbr is `cia` to custom
the complete-item order in popupmenu.
closes: vim/vim#14006closes: vim/vim#157606a89c94a9e
Problem: Cannot see matched text in popup menu
Solution: Introduce 2 new highlighting groups: PmenuMatch and
PmenuMatchSel (glepnir)
closes: vim/vim#1469440c1c3317d
Co-authored-by: glepnir <glephunter@gmail.com>
Problem: Cannot have buffer-local value for 'completeopt'
(Nick Jensen).
Solution: Make 'completeopt' global-local (zeertzjq).
Also for some reason test Test_ColonEight_MultiByte seems to be failing
sporadically now. Let's mark it as flaky.
fixes: vim/vim#5487closes: vim/vim#14922529b9ad62a
Problem: Currently, the `immutable` property of options can be applied for options that are hidden and options whose value simply can't be changed. Which is problematic when attempting to convert an option like `'maxcombine'` into an immutable option, because trying to `:set` an immutable option currently gives an error, which is only desired behavior for hidden options, not options that are actually immutable.
Solution: Separate the `immutable` property into two distinct `hidden` and `immutable` properties. Change all options with the `immutable` property to use the `hidden` property instead. Also add `p_mco` as an `immutable` option, as its value cannot be changed, and the underlying variable is not used anywhere.
Problem: Setting some options changes curswant unnecessarily.
Solution: Add a P_HLONLY flag that prevents changing curswant.
(zeertzjq)
closes: vim/vim#14044fcaed6a70f
When "q" is set in 'shortmess' it now fully hides the "recording @a" message
when you are recording a macro instead of just shortening to "recording". This
removes duplication when using reg_recording() in the statusline.
Related #19193
Remove `export` pramgas from defs headers as it causes IWYU to believe
that the definitions from the defs headers comes from main header, which
is not what we really want.
Problem: The maximum 'statuscolumn' width and grow behavior is undocumented.
Solution: Define, use and document the maximum 'statuscolumn' width and grow behavior.
