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Asked: 2026-05-13T14:15:47+00:00

Background I’m building an application where it detects what documents you’re using from the

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Background

I’m building an application where it detects what documents you’re using from the file system. To do this it must access the AXDocument attribute of the active window. MacVim provides this. Running Vim in the Terminal wouldn’t provide this.

I’ve just put out a survey to ask what editor coders who are interested in my app use. A significant number of the folk using Vim used it directly from the command line.

Why not use a GUI Vim?

Why do some people prefer to run Vim this way versus a GUI implementation like MacVim?

What advantages does this offer? As I understand it, you can send files to MacVim from the command line just as easily as command line Vim.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    These reasons may be different for each specific developer but my guess would be:

    1. vim is pretty much vim on any platform. GUI implementations can
      vary.
    2. Familiarity – being familiar with vim does not nessecarily mean
      being familar with vim wrapped ina
      GUI – espectially given #1.
    3. “Elite Complex” 😉
    4. No definite avantages to the users over cli vim.
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