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GeezerVison is showing github.com — Add inline suggestion (ghost text) rendering primitive by anxkhn · Pull Request #125 · CodeEditApp/CodeEditTextView

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@anxkhn

@anxkhn anxkhn commented Jun 30, 2026

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Description

Adds a low-level rendering primitive for inline "ghost text" suggestions: text drawn after the caret that previews content the user has not typed yet (the GitHub Copilot / predictive-completion UI pattern).

New public API:

  • InlineSuggestion: a value type holding a document offset and the text to show (may be multi-line).
  • TextView.setInlineSuggestion(_:at:): show a suggestion anchored at a given offset.
  • TextView.setInlineSuggestion(_:): show a suggestion anchored at the primary caret.
  • TextView.clearInlineSuggestion(): clear it.

Implementation notes:

  • A suggestion is purely a rendering hint. It is drawn as a sibling overlay anchored at the caret and never mutates textStorage or shifts real text layout, so it cannot pollute undo, selection, or the document.
  • An InlineSuggestionManager owns the overlay view and positions it from the text view's existing layout/caret geometry; InlineSuggestionView draws the (optionally multi-line) text.
  • Passing nil or an empty string clears any existing suggestion.

This is the rendering layer of a planned native inline-completion feature for the CodeEdit stack (this package renders, CodeEditSourceEditor coordinates request/accept/dismiss, CodeEdit wires up the provider). This PR is self-contained and only touches CodeEditTextView.

Related Issues

  • closes Inline suggestion (ghost text) rendering primitive #124

Checklist

  • I read and understood the contributing guide as well as the code of conduct
  • The issues this PR addresses are related to each other
  • My changes generate no new warnings
  • My code builds and runs on my machine
  • My changes are all related to the related issue above
  • I documented my code

Screenshots

This layer is a non-visual API primitive: it adds no user-facing UI on its own, and the visible ghost text only appears once a higher layer drives it. The rendered result will be shown in the downstream CodeEditSourceEditor / CodeEdit PRs. Behavior here is covered by unit tests, including a test that the suggestion never mutates textStorage.

Testing

  • xcodebuild -scheme CodeEditTextView -destination "platform=macOS,name=My Mac" clean test: all 72 tests pass, including the new InlineSuggestionTests suite.
  • SwiftLint: 0 violations (strict) on all changed files.

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@anxkhn
feat: add inline suggestion (ghost text) rendering primitive
e6f7350 
Add an overlay-based inline suggestion primitive that draws dimmed ghost
text anchored at the caret without mutating textStorage or shifting real
text layout. This is the foundation for inline completions such as
GitHub Copilot.

- InlineSuggestion: Equatable model holding an offset and text.
- InlineSuggestionView: sibling NSView overlay that typesets and draws
  CTLines using the same Core Text context setup as LineFragmentRenderer.
- InlineSuggestionManager: builds CTLines from typing attributes, anchors
  the overlay at rectForOffset(offset), and repositions on layout.
- TextView gains an inlineSuggestionManager and forwarding helpers, with
  updateLayout hooks in draw(_:) and layout().
This was referenced Jun 30, 2026
Add inline completion (ghost text) coordination layer CodeEditApp/CodeEditSourceEditor#375
Open
Native GitHub Copilot inline completions CodeEditApp/CodeEdit#2181
Open
Add native GitHub Copilot inline completions CodeEditApp/CodeEdit#2182
Draft
@matthijseikelenboom
matthijseikelenboom requested review from austincondiff, thecoolwinter and tom-ludwig July 1, 2026 17:15

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Reviewers

@austincondiff austincondiff Awaiting requested review from austincondiff
@thecoolwinter thecoolwinter Awaiting requested review from thecoolwinter
@tom-ludwig tom-ludwig Awaiting requested review from tom-ludwig

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@anxkhn
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
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