Multi Instance - Contributors Wanted - Please Take An Issue

[alex-courtis]

Project Board

Any and all contributions are most gratefully appreciated.

Please comment on or assign yourself an issue if you're working on it.

Current State

nvim-tree allows and supports exactly one window per tab, however there is some shared state between windows.

Problems

• Multiple windows may be opened in one tab via split, however this is not functional
• Windows across tabs are somewhat discrete in that they have their own buffer, however some state is shared e.g. opened folders and bleeds across tabs

Desired Outcome

• Discrete nvim-tree windows, with their own state that does not affect others.
• Single shared nvim-tree windows across tabs, with identical / mirrored state. This is similar to the tree of some IDEs.

Implementation Notes

• Single instance would use the one buffer and state. This would result in the tree being closed across tabs.
• Discrete instances would require the global state to be stored per-instance.
• Global states such as filesystem and git would need to be shared, with single global watchers / background tasks.

Limitations

• This will likely need to be a binary option. Providing a means to manage discrete and shared instances would be (impossibly?) problematic from a UX perspective.
• Floating tree windows are closed when they lose focus, including when swapping tabs. Floating would continue to be restricted to a single ephemeral instance.

Implementation Plan

An incremental approach is more practical, with a feature branch likely interrupting development due to its cross-cutting nature.

1. Refactor: move global state / singletons under the explorer.
2. Build, experimental feature flag: discrete tree instances for each window.
3. Consolidate: callbacks or state updates such as git, watchers, refresh should be applied to each instance.
4. Release 2.0.0: following experiment testing, release with the discrete option turned ON by default, as that is closest to current behaviour.

It's not clear yet whether 2 and 3 would be implemented at the same time or sequentially. Simplest/safest implementation can be determined once work begins on 2.

References

• Per Tab nvim-trees #457
• Allow opening the tree just like NERDTree in the current window or new splits when opening directories #1459
• setup switches tabs if nvim tree open in another tab #1491
• :NvimTreeToggle - toggle file explorer in all tabs #1493
• tabnew should focus existing tab if file already opened #1687
• Keep tree open in all tabs #1880
• Reuse Buffer #1895
• NvimTree changes root in the other tab after it is reopened #1978
• Opening nvim-tree in a split breaks vinegar-style #2227
• Norton commander-like mode #2252
• Toggling folder expansion in one tab's tree affects the tree in another tab #2257
• how to use tcd instead of lcd/cd to maintain one context per tab #1847
• Is it possible to have separate nvim-tree in each tab with its own root etc? #1960
• How to get nvim-tree to use the same (single) instance in all tabs? #2244
• skip through empty directories  #2497
• Retain Tree State on DirChanged #2488
• how to use one instance in different tab #2718
• Can't open a buffer in new tabpage when quit_on_open + hijack_unnamed_buffer_when_opening are true #2851

[thenbe]

Discrete nvim-tree windows, with their own state that does not affect others.

This could enable us to use NvimTree with edgy.nvim to achieve something like this: