Windows support (go)

[junegunn]

Why?

😮

Parts that are not Windows-friendly

• ncurses
  • alternatives: termbox, pdcurses
  • Last time I checked, termbox wasn't as stable/feature-complete/performant as ncurses
• #include <unistd.h>
  • isatty
  • Actually I tried https://github.com/andrew-d/go-termutil before cgo. Didn't work on linux.
  • alternative: https://github.com/mattn/go-isatty
• Default command using find
  • Disallow stdin as tty?
• Use of sh -c to start default command set by $FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND
  • Should work on cygwin or msys, but on Windows prompt?
• Build automation

[untitaker]

appveyor can be used for the builds. You'd have to install Go manually though.

[junegunn]

@untitaker Thanks, I'll look into it.

[junegunn]

I managed to compile ncurses on Windows using mingw-w64 on msys, but that alone didn't help much. It looks like there are many more issues to be handled 😕 Since I don't think I'll be able to find enough time to continue working on Windows support, I'll just leave this issue open.

Please let me know if anyone's interested in contributing.

[simnalamburt]

Currently I'm trying to get through this problem but there's so many hard-coded junegunn/fzf URL in the codes. I just forked this project and I'm replacing all those junegunn/fzf to mine. Is there any good way to handle these URLs nicely?

[simnalamburt]

I somehow built the fzf but I recieved below:

zsh$ ./fzf-tmux
panic: Failed to open /dev/tty

goroutine 8 [running]:
panic(0x5592e0, 0xc082002570)
        C:/Go/src/runtime/panic.go:464 +0x3f4
github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src/curses.Init(0xc082004880, 0x470100)
        C:/msys64/home/simna/.go/src/github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src/curses/curses.go:261 +0xcc
github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src.NewTerminal.func1()
        C:/msys64/home/simna/.go/src/github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src/terminal.go:242 +0x43
github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src.(*Terminal).Loop(0xc082070000)
        C:/msys64/home/simna/.go/src/github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src/terminal.go:751 +0x2f7
created by github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src.Run
        C:/msys64/home/simna/.go/src/github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64/src/core.go:210 +0xf0a

Reference

• https://github.com/simnalamburt/fzf-mingw-w64

[junegunn]

@simnalamburt Unfortunately, that is how go projects are laid out.

• http://golang.org/doc/code.html#Organization
• https://golang.org/cmd/go/#hdr-Relative_import_paths
  • To avoid ambiguity, Go programs cannot use relative import paths within a work space.
• e.g. https://github.com/docker/docker

I myself am not sure which would be the best way to handle this. You might want to take a look at the answers here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14323872/using-forked-package-import-in-go

[jmlucjav]

no idea if this is helpful, but just in case: https://github.com/gdamore/tcell is a go alternative to termbox, seems like a new project

[junegunn]

junegunn/fzf.vim#186

@jfun reported that fzf runs on linux subsystem of Windows 10. I haven't had a chance to try it, but it sounds promising.

[Swoorup]

WSL is only limited to windows 10 though. :(

[kelleyma49]

I have an alpha version of fzf for Windows available here: https://github.com/kelleyma49/fzf/tree/WindowsTermbox . Make sure to checkout the WindowsTermbox branch.

This version uses termbox-go instead of ncurses, and it doesn't need cygwin. Run go build in fzf\src\fzf, which should build a .exe that you can play with.

[simnalamburt]

@kelleyma49 Thank you for you awesome work! This is exactly what I was looking for.

@junegunn How do you think of this branch? Is it seems to be able to be merged?

[gaving]

@kelleyma49 Awesome. This is a game changer for me on Windows, hope to see it incorporated!

[justinmk]

@kelleyma49 Is curses needed on any platform, with that branch? Why not use termbox for all platforms?

[junegunn]

@simnalamburt It looks promising but it isn't ready to be merged. Some features are commented out. I see it more as a proof-of-concept implementation as for now. But if you just need the basic features, this might be already usable.

@kelleyma49 Cool, thanks! Did you have any issues while porting the code to termbox? I considered using termbox before I started on rewriting fzf in Go (late 2014), but it lacked some features fzf needed such as the support for 256 color terminal and mouse. I guess things have changed over the time? (https://github.com/nsf/termbox/releases)

If we can implement everything ncurses provides using termbox, it does make sense to migrate to termbox completely like @justinmk suggested. But I wouldn't go that far at this stage. If it ain't broke, why fix it? I have much trust in battle-tested ncurses and I expect things to be less stable with its much younger alternative.

Implementation-wise, I think we should do some refactoring of extracting non-portable parts of the code first, to minimize code duplication I see in your branch. Then we can rebase your work on it. Also I would make it possible to build fzf with termbox even on non-Windows platform using build tags. I'll let you know of the progress.

[kelleyma49]

@junegunn - I agree, it isn't ready to be merged. It's not feature parity yet (for example, preview window doesn't work.)

You've abstracted the curses enough that I don't think it would be a problem to keep ncurses and the termbox-go implementations around until you're satisfied that termbox-go (or another solution) matches the features and performance of the ncurses. Let me cleanup the code and test some more before I attempt a pull request.

[junegunn]

@kelleyma49 I noticed that your branch is behind a few versions (0.15.1 vs 0.15.5) and doesn't compile on non-Windows platform, and I felt there's more code we can refactor out. So I did some base work last night to make it easier to add termbox support. I'll push it to a new branch and request that you rebase your work on it.

[junegunn]

@kelleyma49 Please take a look at: https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/commits/termbox. It will build with termbox on Windows or when termbox tag is provided (TAGS=termbox make or go build -tags termbox). Termbox build compiles but it doesn't draw anything on the screen yet. I believe now you'll just have to fill in empty functions in tui/termbox.go

(GOOS=windows make also works.)

[kelleyma49]

Thanks @junegunn . I submitted a pull request to you: #714

[Swoorup]

And the crowd cheers in support 👯‍♂️

[junegunn]

Windows binaries are now available. Thanks @kelleyma49.

https://github.com/junegunn/fzf-bin/releases

Unfortunately fzf still doesn't run on cygwin or msys since neither termbox nor tcell supports the platform.

• termbox-go app does not initialize on cygwin on Windows... nsf/termbox-go#66
• https://github.com/gdamore/tcell#windows

[kelleyma49]

If you use PowerShell, feel free to try out my module that wraps fzf: https://github.com/kelleyma49/PSFzf.