I was super excited and took it for a spin, but this is not usable (macOS 12, arm). Not "rough around the edges", but "pre-alpha unusable". The command pallet didn't respond to arrow keys. I couldn't figure out how to search for an extension. There's no menu bar items, and it follows very few macOS platform conventions (eg, Cmd+T opens a new tab with its own workspace, but Cmd+W doesn't close it.) For some reason, the text is super blurry, especially on the file tree and other UI elements. The UI is obviously non-native and sticks out way more than VS Code's electron based UI.
I think it's a great project with a lot of potential, but I'll give it at least a year or two before general usability.
The UI is actually native, it's just that the native Rust UI tookit it's using (druid) is still work-in-progress and doesn't have some things we expect from a full UI framework (most notably, good text rendering).
Sure, if by native you mean “not using the web”, but my understanding is that Druid, much like flutter, uses a canvas like renderer underneath and doesn’t use platform widgets. The fact that lapce’s ui - like its file picker - looks nothing like a Mac app is flat out obvious and makes me less inclined to bother.
Almost all UI frameworks and APIs given from operating systems (WinForms, UIKit, GTK, …) uses a canvas renderer underneath. Except for the different styling, technology wise there isn’t really that much difference from other cross-platform UI frameworks such as Druid or Flutter. (For example, everyone seems to agree that Sublime Text is a “native” text editor, even if most of the rendering is actually done via a proprietary homebrew UI framework internal to Sublime HQ.)
Maybe you were emphasizing more on the theming/design principles than the technology behind it. In that area I just think Druid needs more work to allow using native dialogs for certain specific elements (file dialog, right click menu, etc.), which is what Qt already does.
Everything uses a canvas tender underneath, but native - at least to me - is using the platform’s implementation and widgets. Otherwise, even the web is native.
> I couldn't figure out how to search for an extension.
AFAICT there is only one extension/plugin currently (for Rust Analyzer) which is installable via the "puzzle piece" icon on the left side of the editor window.
In general it seems like non-modal people currently need to setup keybindings to get a usable editor.
I think it's a great project with a lot of potential, but I'll give it at least a year or two before general usability.