Is this project abandoned?

[dcchambers]

Has this project effectively been abandoned?

No source code updates since November 2017. More bugs are starting to crop up and issues and PRs on GitHub have been open for years with no answers.

[Legend94rz]

I have found some substitute plugins: "Vimium" and "Vimium C".
You could get them by searching "Vimium" in the Chrome store.

[schmitmd]

Without wanting to offend anyone, I think it's probably safe to say "yes" here. #716 , #721 , and #726 are the same issue, have two different pull requests (#724 , #719 ), and the broken functionality is link hinting. At least for my own use case, that's really basic on the necessary/important features of this extension...
@1995eaton , can you weigh in here?

[jakem72360]

@dcchambers @schmitmd I emailed the dev in September asking about my PR #713. I still haven't heard back, so I'd say yes. The extension errors out now on when I click enable after a recent Chromium update.

I'd be interested in submitting PR's to a fork, but don't have the time to maintain one myself. Any takers?

[dcchambers]

@schmitmd yeah...I came here looking for a fix after my last chrome update broke that link hinting functionality - which is ~50% of my usage with cVim. Sad to see this project die out - as I like it quite a bit more than the other chrome vim-bindings extensions.

@jakem72360 Thought about it, I use the exention...extensively (haha) and I probably do have the bandwidth to maintain a fork, but I'm not a JS developer so I'd feel a little bit like a fish-out-of-water trying to get a hold of things for a while. 🤔

[ShawnConn]

Is there a Chrome Dev extension policy against forking a project then submitting builds to the Chrome Web Store? I have a Chrome Dev account to host a build, but I'm guessing copying/modding extensions might look suspicious and trigger some automated systems looking for nefarious extension spoofing.

Ideally, someone would get a hold of @1995eaton to see if he could add a maintainer to GH & the Chrome Web Store project.

[dcchambers]

@ShawnConn Not to my knowledge - AFAIK there are forks of projects in the Chrome web store already. e.g. Adblock stuff. This project is MIT licensed so there's no legal issue with creating a fork.

I agree though - that's the ideal situation.

[DarkWiiPlayer]

@ShawnConn In the worst case, couldn't the fork simply be rebranded? This would also come with the benefit of indicating to the users that it's a fork of this project.

@dcchambers Can relate to that; I also use cvim a lot but am not a JS dev so wouldn't feel comfortable taking over the project.

Lately I've noticed more and more things slowly breaking and it'd be a shame if the extension just slowly died, so I really hope someone with some JS forks it.

Dumb question: Has anybody tried using the donation link in the readme to send a message to the author? Unless they've disappeared from the internet completely, it might be worth trying :)

[dcchambers]

@DarkWiiPlayer that's not a bad idea to get a note to @1995eaton. I wonder if he would be open to adding (a) maintainer(s)...or at the very least, merging a few of these changes necessary to fix critical bugs.

[dcchambers]

Going to read through the code this weekend to see if forking this is something I'd be capable of taking on. A quick glance shows some pretty sparsely documented code. But if there are any experienced JS devs that use this tool and want to keep it alive - please speak up and let's set up a maintained fork!

At the very least, I can at least patch in the fixes for the latest issue(s) and release an updated version to the web store while we work out a long-term plan.

[nicanordlc]

@dcchambers I work on JS, if you're going to re-upload this to the store and need some help for maintaing it I'm in. ( :

[akai1831]

Guys, please have a look on SurfingKeys as alternative, it is actively maintained by Developer.

Kind regards,
Red

[jmlucjav]

Guys, please have a look on SurfingKeys as alternative, it is actively maintained by Developer.

Kind regards,
Red

yeah, I reviewed the current status, and picked https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys as well. Seems to have good momentum (vimium looks fine as well). Although we have to praise @dcchambers for taking initiative, no matter what the outcome

[CodyReichert]

@dcchambers - I'm a JS dev and would be happy to help review bug fixes and maintain a fork. My time right now is limited so I may not be able to work on adding new features; but cVim is a core part of my workflow and can absolutely help verify PRs and explain the code to anyone looking to work on it.

Forking this code and releasing a new Chrome extension will not be problematic (as you mentioned, it's MIT). The name just needs to be changed (cVim2, vChrome, etc, would all be acceptable).

Anyway, ping me on this issue or at the email in my profile if I can help and thanks for initiative.

As a side note, SurfingKeys actually works really well and retains a lot of the features of cVim people are worried about losing. Consolidating efforts there is a great option as well.

[dcchambers]

Hey folks, I've made a fork here: https://github.com/dcchambers/vb4c and I am in the final stages of getting the fixed version deployed to the chrome web store. I will update once that is done - planning on getting it done tomorrow.

New project is called vb4c - vim bindings for chrome.

Also I am converting that repository to a stand-alone repo rather than a forked repo as its easier for tracking new release verisons and more, since it appears those changes will never get pushed back into this upstream project.

---

Status:

• Fork and merge in the fix for hinting functionality. (Included the fix (Updated creating a shadow root to use Shadow DOM v1 spec. This fixes … #719) from @antonioyon. Thanks!)
• Update docs, README, and html pages to reflect the change to the new fork.
• [In Progress] Release patched version to Chrome Web store.
• Determine the future of the project
  • This fix should buy us a little more time while we figure out if this is something worth maintaining, or if migrating to a different tool is best.
  • There are a lot of good options today that weren't available when cVim was first released.
  • If we choose to maintain this project, which I am interested in doing, I will be looking for some co-maintainers that have better javasript skills than me. 😄 Look for active discussion in the vb4c repo

[dcchambers]

Quick update - I have submitted an initial version of vb4c (my fork of cVim) to the Chrome web store.

It is currently pending review from Google and I will update here once it has been published! Thanks for the patience.

For a quick turnaround, the only change I made was merging in the fix for hinting functionality, and I kept the branding relatively simple/similar to cVim. Once the initial release is approved for release on the web store I will look at incorporating additional bug fixes and feature requests from the PRs that have piled up on this repo over time, as well as adding better documentation and improving the branding.

Cheers. 🥂