vim should have +clipboard by default

[kitmonisit]

Hi, I think vim should have access to the X clipboard by default, i.e.

$ vim --version | grep clipboard
+clipboard
+xterm_clipboard

This will allow copying and pasting using "*y and "*p in Normal Mode from other applications.

I move to update the bottle such that vim is compiled this way. In my recent test (not a clean Linuxbrew install), the only additional build dependencies are libx11 and libxt.

Note the --with-x option

    system "./configure", "--prefix=#{homebrew_prefix}",
                          "--mandir=#{man}",
                          "--enable-multibyte",
                          "--with-tlib=ncurses",
                          "--with-compiledby=homebrew",
                          "--enable-cscope",
                          "--enable-terminal",
                          "--enable-perlinterp",
                          "--enable-rubyinterp",
                          "--enable-python3interp",
                          "--enable-gui=no",
                          "--with-x",
                          "--enable-luainterp",
                          "--with-lua-prefix=#{formula["lua"].opt_prefix}"

[danielnachun]

We've discussed this before, and my general thought on this is that it is much simpler to use a plugin to get clipboard support: https://github.com/christoomey/vim-system-copy. That plugin is nice because it supports the system clipboard across all OSes, whereas adding X only helps on Linux. You may need to install xclip if your system doesn't have it, but that is also available as a formula so it's pretty easy to set up.

[kitmonisit]

I read through Homebrew/homebrew-core#74263, but I probably missed it, my apologies: Why not have it by default? I disagree with what https://github.com/christoomey/vim-system-copy says about macOS. Getting macvim affords me the system clipboard feature IIRC even when using its terminal executable. In Linux, I'd expect the same behavior. What does it break if we have +clipboard by default?

[danielnachun]

It doesn't break anything, but adding X as a dependency to a formula drags in many other dependencies, some of which have to be built from source in non-standard install prefixes (which are more common for Homebrew on Linux than macOS). vim is a very popular formula so we'd rather avoid making its installation any more complex than it needs to be.

System clipboard support for vim on the terminal on macOS relies on tools and libraries which are guaranteed to be present (and in a consistent location) on macOS, while system clipboard support for vim on the terminal on Linux requires X which we must install through Homebrew.

In the comment below, @carlocab linked to a previous attempt to make a separate formula which builds vim with X support. We are open to the idea of adding this formula but someone has to do the work to set it up.

[kitmonisit]

Right, I've been bitten by that host of X dependencies on non-standard install. I'm a non-root Linux user at work.

Band-aid solution

Hmm, for a start, how about making it a brew install --with-x vim option that's documented in its brew info entry, complete with a caveat?

macvim-like solution

In Homebrew/homebrew-core#74263, there is some aversion to the GUI vim "with all the menus and buttons". macvim has that approach actually. Calling macvim from the shell pulls up GUI vim. With a bit of manual symlinking, I could use the terminal vim upon which macvim is built. For Linux, that approach is fine with me (though I don't know how much of a bloat GTK is, and whether building vim-gtk builds a separate terminal vim executable). What do you think?

[carlocab]

You can do the band-aid solution by hosting a vim formula in your own tap. Options aren't allowed in homebrew/core, unfortunately.

As for the macvim-like solution: it's not so much an aversion to menus and buttons, it's about avoiding dependency bloat. That's why the ideal solution here would be to make it so that you can do brew install vim, and then when you want to add a GUI to your existing vim install, you do (for example) brew install vim-gui.

This is how the git formula works. You do brew install git, which doesn't install the GUI application. If you want the GUI for Git, you do brew install git-gui.

[danielnachun]

It is definitely possible to set up the vim-gtk formula in such a way that vim still launches it in the terminal and then vim-gtk or gvim launches the GUI version. As you surmised it's just a matter of setting up symlinks or launch scripts to call vim with the appropriate flags.

[carlocab]

There was a previous attempt to do something similar: Homebrew/homebrew-core#74263

If you can implement it in the way suggested by this comment, I think that's something we can do in Homebrew.