Design Document
instant.nvim is a collaborative text editing plugin for Neovim. It should allow multiple users to edit the same document at the same time remotely. The plugin infrastructure should simple. Installing third-party tools should be avoided when possible to provide the best setup experience.
- Plugin is written in lua
- Support only Neovim at the moment because functions such as nvim_buf_attach are not present in vim
- Updates in the buffer are retrieved using
vim.loop.nvim_buf_attach - vim.loop has bindings to libuv which allow tcp networking. Websocket is built on top which allow bidirectional communication between the client and server
- The server is written in JS using node.js. The external websocket package is used.
- No communication over TLS is possible in the current state. It is planned to be supported in the future.
- It should use an algorithm which guarantees all replicas are identical even with bad network communications
- Visual cues should be minimal. Usually the collaborative tools show the cursor of other users that are connected. Is that not a distraction? Why not only show a message at the end of line where a user is currently editing.
- It must be identifiable who is editing