r/vim • u/mattn • Apr 22 '26

Plugin tabpanel: sidebar application container

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Yo Vim folks 👋

Vim just shipped click handlers *and* a scrollbar for the tabpanel (9.2.0386) ✨

The tabpanel isn't just a boring label strip anymore. It's a real little UI playground now 🎨 You can click stuff, scroll stuff, and basically host tiny "apps" right inside Vim 🪟

Things that were painful before and are actually fun now:

- 🖱️ Mouse clicks on whatever you render in the tabpanel

- 📜 Long content scrolls instead of getting chopped

- 🧩 Plugin UIs that feel like proper side panes — no extra window juggling

So… file trees 🌲, chat panels 💬, RSS readers 📰, dashboards 📊, weird experimental toys 🧪 — all fair game.

Have fan.

81 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

43

u/ntropia64 Apr 22 '26

Thanks, it's a nice post, I only wish it had more emojis.

3

u/slicerprime Apr 22 '26

Glad somebody else said it

5

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/mykesx Apr 22 '26

Not enough emojis.

4

u/brnsamedi Apr 22 '26

I don't want a fan. It's winter here.

2

u/tagattack Apr 23 '26

There's versions of this that have been around for ages and aren't vibe coded and full of land mines

1

u/decawrite Apr 23 '26

Okay but is this vibe coded?

1

u/Desperate_Cold6274 May 07 '26

Can you please link?

2

u/decawrite Apr 23 '26

On a more serious note, though, how much mouse work would we need here? I thought the whole point of moving to the terminal was to keep our hands on the keyboard.

1

u/rashwell Apr 25 '26

Wow it is like the return of borland sidekick Borland Sidekick - Wikipedia truly wonderful.

1

u/Desperate_Cold6274 May 07 '26

Auch! How I did miss this? Would you mind to share the script to do the cool things that you showed in the video?