Re: [NTG-context] (any) neovim users?

On 2022-10-14, Alan Braslau via ntg-context wrote:

On Fri, 14 Oct 2022 16:48:42 -0000 (UTC) Nicola via ntg-context wrote:

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On 2022-10-14, Alan Braslau via ntg-context wrote:

...

A recent upgrade of the editor neovim leads to the following error when using %&context identification at the head of .tex source files.

The ConTeXt plugin (as well as MetaPost and MetaFont ones) has recently been rewritten in Vim 9 script (the new scripting language embedded in Vim), which NeoVim does not support, afaik. See this thread: https://github.com/vim/vim/issues/10968.

One thing you can do is: grab the old runtime files and put them in you own ~/.vim directory (following a similar layout). You may get those from the `runtime` folder of the Vim project: https://github.com/vim/vim, or from NeoVim repo. Just checkout a revision with the old scripts (searching for "update runtime" in the commit logs should help you filter the relevant commits).

Nicola

Thank you,

I wonder why a lua error is reported?

Sorry, I should have said that I am only *assuming* that what I wrote may be the reason for the error. In fact, I have now tried to open a file starting with %&context, and I get no error. This with NeoVim v0.7.2.

I also worry that %@context support has now diverged (for whatever reason) and that Context highlighting is now limited to the one "vim" variant of the vi editor. Using old runtime files in one's personal .vim directory locks one into unmaintained (by the Context community) syntax. I wish that a better solution were available.

I am the current maintainer of the ConTeXt/MetaPost/METAFONT plugins. I do not use NeoVim, and maintaining a plugin compatible with both systems would be too much of a headache (I know because I have tried with other plugins). I think that the ConTeXt plugin was not fully functional in NeoVim even before switch to Vim 9 script (async typesetting was based on Vim API and, last time I checked, NeoVim had an incompatible API). Switching to Vim 9 script has many advantages, as Bram has explained in the thread I have linked to. So, I believe that it is only natural that Vim's runtime will gradually move towards Vim 9 script. Yours is a valid concern, but maintaining (Neo)Vim plugins is a community effort. I took over the development of the ConTeXt plugin because I wanted to improve the support for ConTeXt in Vim, and at the time the plugin had no active maintainer. In the same way, an unsatisfied user might take over the development of a ConTeXt plugin for NeoVim, or maybe even for both systems. Anyone can submit a patch, and I would welcome a co-maintainer, or even someone who would like to take over. I alone simply do not have enough capacity to wet my feet in two rivers. Indeed, if you or someone reading this would like to steer the direction of future development of those plugins, let me know! Nicola