feature request: image support

[shaunsingh]

Hi, would it be possible to implement image support? https://github.com/edluffy/hologram.nvim can help with displaying the images

[goolord]

jeez, so many kitty features simultaneously impress me and turn me off of kitty.

you should be able to whipup a rather hacky solution with the current set of features. the ui building api should already be extendable, but since hologram.nvim seemingly doesn't have a way of returning how many rows and columns an image takes up calculating how much space to allocate seems like it would be difficult/impossible. i might try to figure something out if i have spare time

[shaunsingh]

Yeah, the previous dashboard plugin (dashboard.nvim) kindof has image support. You could use a floating window running a terminal in place of the dashboard text, and then use something like uzerbeg to display the images. It was really hacky and barely worked though

[siduck]

using ueberzug ( for linux ) would be nice since it works on every terminal :D

[goolord]

dashboard-nvim (which this plugin is not a successor to, btw!) presumably did the terminal previewer for exactly this reason. there are simply too many competing standards.

my approach to designing this api was such that functionality could be added by another plugin, i think i will write 1 such plugin and any further implementations can be contributed :)

[goolord]

i can't seem to get hologram to work at all, let alone with alpha :/

[siduck]

i can't seem to get hologram to work at all, let alone with alpha :/

try using ueberzug to display stuff ._.

[siduck]

A lil script taking from telescope-media repo

[goolord]

unfortunately ueberzug also doesn't seem to work for me i read that maybe it doesn't support wayland but since they have seemingly closed their issue tracker there's no way for me to know

[siduck]

unfortunately ueberzug also doesn't seem to work for me i read that maybe it doesn't support wayland but since they have seemingly closed their issue tracker there's no way for me to know

which distro?

[shaunsingh]

according to the repo info section:

...display images in combination with X11 I'm assuming that means no wayland support

The only cross-platform ways I can think of are

• kitty + kitty image stuff
• sixel-compatible terminal + sixel image stuff

I think the best solution would be to create a successor to hologram.nvim, but sounds like quite a bit of work and would end up being extremely complicated if we were to support multiple image protocols.

The easiest (but hackiest) way is to just open a floating neovim terminal window and run uberzug/sixel/kitty-image. Since the dashboard doesn't scroll, maybe you/we could consider an option to replace the dashboard ASCII with a terminal instead, where the user could run anything?

[siduck]

sixel and kitty stuff are very terminal specific , not all terminals support sixel graphics which is upsetting :(

[goolord]

sixel and kitty stuff are very terminal specific , not all terminals support sixel graphics which is upsetting :(

there is not a good cross platform way of displaying images in a terminal. there are simply too many competing standards and none of them are very complete, which is why dashboard does the floating terminal window thing

[siduck]

sixel and kitty stuff are very terminal specific , not all terminals support sixel graphics which is upsetting :(

there is not a good cross platform way of displaying images in a terminal. there are simply too many competing standards and none of them are very complete, which is why dashboard does the floating terminal window thing

yes , but ueberzug works on all terminals on linux ( but not wayland )

[shaunsingh]

honestly maybe chafa is the way to go? You don't get a proper image, its made up of unicode blocks. Benefit being that every single terminal will work, the drawback is a much lower resolution image

[goolord]

this seems promising https://github.com/bytesnake/vim-graphical-preview

[siduck]

this seems promising https://github.com/bytesnake/vim-graphical-preview

ig only a few terminals have sixel graphics support

[goolord]

the upshot being that it actually works : )

[EpsilonKu]

What about to steal dashboard code?

[goolord]

it's already in alpha https://github.com/goolord/alpha-nvim/pull/124 @EpsilonKu

[EpsilonKu]

No, I mean ready ueberzug script.

[goolord]

does dashboard integreate ueberzug now?

[EpsilonKu]

https://github.com/glepnir/dashboard-nvim/commit/0c3fb6e7a430859b8c1b605fa9fdcf38df0dc079 . Kinda yeah

[goolord]

well, ueberzug doesn't work on my machine, so I have no way to test it. but if someone submits a PR I'll happily approve it. the terminal PR should be a good example of how to extend the alpha api.

[siduck]

well, ueberzug doesn't work on my machine, so I have no way to test it. but if someone submits a PR I'll happily approve it. the terminal PR should be a good example of how to extend the alpha api.

how did you test it?

[OpenWaygate]

How about use Chafa to convert an image into graphics formats or ANSI/Unicode character art? It can display in terminal. There are also some discussion about this in dashboard-nvim

[goolord]

if that's what you want to do you can use the terminal element https://github.com/goolord/alpha-nvim/blob/main/doc/alpha.txt#L137-L159

[justchokingaround]

this program supports Kitty, Sixel, iTerm and Unicode blocks with truecolor/ansi256 support otherwise. that's pretty much all the terminal picture protocols: https://github.com/emsquid/pic not sure if it is helpful, but thought i would share it here anw

[constantitus]

Is this feature still in consideration ?

calculating how much space to allocate seems like it would be difficult/impossible

Allowing the user to specify the size of the image could be a good solution, even if it's a bit hacky. How often is the user going to change the image anyway ?

I was looking into image.nvim, it supports both kitty and ueberzug. I've been able to get it to draw the image, but it gets wiped after a few miliseconds.

config

```lua local width = vim.api.nvim_win_get_width(0) local buffer = vim.api.nvim_buf_get_name(0) local image = require("image").from_file( "/path/to/image/NeovimLogo.png", { id = "neovim_logo", -- with_virtual_padding = true, -- this should bind the image to alpha's buffer buffer = buffer, -- optional, binds image to a buffer (paired with window binding) -- or just call image:clear() when exiting alpha ? inline = true, -- hacky aproximation of the center x = math.floor(width / 2 - 15), height = 8, } ) require("alpha").setup({ layout = { { type = "terminal", command = function() image:render() -- this is obviously not what I should be using... -- I just need it to call the render function, not execute shell commands return "" end, width = 100, height = 8, opts = { redraw = true, window_config = {}, position = "center", }, }, { type = "button", val = "test button", on_press = function() end, opts = { position = "center", shortcut = "e", cursor = 3, width = 50, align_shortcut = "right", hl_shortcut = "Keyword", }, } }, opts = { margin = 5, }, }) require("alpha.term") ```

[goolord]

until any terminal graphics protocol reaches widespread adoption i am apprehensive to merge anything, especially a neovim library which wraps such an api, into this plugin. since i wrote this plugin i've seen dozens and dozens of these "image in terminal" plugins pop up and die because maintaining them isn't worth the hassle.

i would just use the terminal element and run a shell command that displays an image in that terminal window