Neovim instantly becomes a superior piece of software if you use any of the GUI frontends. If you use neovim inside a terminal you are just straight up using an inferior product, with less features and more problems. The terminal version is most likely slower as well as you now also have the entire legacy terminal overhead.
>I think what TUIs get right is that they are optimized for use by the keyboard.
Neovim is just as much a GUI as a TUI. You can even use it as a backend for VSCode. Nothing about the keyboard controls have anything to do with this.
> If you use neovim inside a terminal you are just straight up using an inferior product, with less features and more problems
I use neovim like that and the selling point for me is that it's 1 less program that I have to install and learn with the added (crucial) benefit that it doesn't update on its own, changing UI and setting that I was used to.
>benefit that it doesn't update on its own, changing UI and setting that I was used to.
This exact thing remains true though, you are using the exact same neovim, but instead of it being wrapped inside a totally bizarre piece legacy software, it is rendered inside a modern graphical frontend. It looks mostly the same, except it handles fonts better, it is independent of weird terminal quirks and likely faster. There is no dowside.
And again, your point about using TUI stuff because of the input method or whatever is just false. Neovide has the exact same input method, yet has a complete GUI. Using the terminal makes no sense it all, it is the worst neovim experience there is.
Yeah but I also use a bunch of other stuff inside of Kitty so by using it in Kitty it composes well with the rest of my tools. Kitty windows and neovim splits integrate perfectly with smart splits. I even get images in the terminal and in Neovim.
>I think what TUIs get right is that they are optimized for use by the keyboard.
Neovim is just as much a GUI as a TUI. You can even use it as a backend for VSCode. Nothing about the keyboard controls have anything to do with this.