Unable to Open Multiple OniVim Windows on Ubuntu

[Christopher-Hayes]

Summary

When I have one OniVim window open, I am unable to open a second OniVim window / instance.

Description

Different ways I've tried opening a second instance:

• Running the .AppImage with OniVim already open will just focus the OniVim that is currently open (Ubuntu will also send a "OniVim is ready" desktop notification)
• I have a .desktop file setup with OniVim, which allows me to add OniVim to my taskbar "favorites". It also means if I right-click on the app, it gives an "Open in a New Window" option. That will not open a new window; however.
• Using CTRL + ENTER when running the .AppImage from the shell is for running a new instance of an application. This didn't work either and only printed the result [1]+ Done.

In conclusion, it seems like OniVim needs to specifically support multiple instances.

Use-Case

I would like to use OniVim on multiple projects.

Specs

Version: 0.5.9-nightly | 7c00d368 OS: Ubuntu 20.04

[CrossR]

Hey!

We do actually support multiple windows, it was just the default behaviour was swapped to reuse the existing instance. That makes something like oni2 file.txt reuse it rather than open up a second window, which isn't usually desirable.

There is a -n /--new flag for the CLI that will always open a new window, but I don't know how well that will work for the desktop file case. I seem to think you can pass args in a desktop file, though it would be good for us to check/compare our behaviour to something like VSCode.

[Christopher-Hayes]

Ah, okay. I understand the use-case. So, VSCode and other applications like browsers if you open a file, it'll reuse the current window. Which OniVim seems to do similarly. The only trouble is, it's like OniVim specifically prevents a new window from being opened. The second and third options listed in the bug description are standard methods on Ubuntu of opening up a new window for an application. OniVim seems to break away from that.

Thank you for the -n option, I'll start using that.

[taxilian]

Hmm; I like that I can now use multiple windows, but does it have to be a different process? on macOS the normal way to switch between instances of the same app is "cmd-`" - but that doesn't work with onivim because they are all fully different instances of the application, so they don't share a dock icon and you can't cycle through them. On the mac that's a pretty significant usability issue

[Et7f3]

Underlying issue https://github.com/revery-ui/revery/issues/224