Vim

Template:Unix Vim (command: vim), aka Vi IMproved, is a text editor. Emacs enthusiasts are religious about hating it. I myself couldn't live without it.

First, a working .vimrc. My .vimrc does most or all of the keyboard mapping work necessary to make insert mode operate correctly using normal keys (arrows, home, end, backspace, et cetera) instead of freaking out.

Super-quick bootstrap with pathogen, sensible, and palofobsidian

If you haven't set up vim at all for a given environment, this script will

set up the user vimfiles with autoload, bundle, plugin dirs
install tpope's pathogen so bundles installed under bundle work
install tpope's sensible so that sane modern defaults are set concerning behavior
install psmay's palofobsidian so that syntax highlighting isn't such an eyesore

For unixish systems, the script below can be used as-is. To set up Windows gvim using Cygwin, uncomment the lines under "Windows systems" to direct at the paths used under Windows.

Exercise caution if the vimrc and vimfiles are already set up—clobbering may occur.

# Unixy systems
VIMRC=~/.vimrc
VIMFILES=~/.vim

# Windows systems (for native Windows gvim, but this script should be run from Cygwin)
#CYG_USERPROFILE="`cygpath "$USERPROFILE"`"
#VIMRC="$CYG_USERPROFILE/_vimrc"
#VIMFILES="$CYG_USERPROFILE/vimfiles"

subdir_setup() {
echo "Creating $VIMFILES with subdirs" &&
mkdir -p "$VIMFILES" "$VIMFILES/autoload" "$VIMFILES/bundle" "$VIMFILES/plugin" &&
echo "Subdirs setup OK."
}

pathogen_setup () {
echo "Getting pathogen as bundle" &&
cd "$VIMFILES/bundle" &&
git clone https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git &&
echo "Adding script to sourcing pathogen from autoload" &&
echo 'runtime bundle/vim-pathogen/autoload/pathogen.vim' > "$VIMFILES/autoload/pathogen.vim" &&
echo "Adding pathogen material to $VIMRC" &&
cat >>"$VIMRC" <<EOF &&
execute pathogen#infect()
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on
EOF
echo "pathogen setup OK."
}

sensible_setup () {
echo "Getting sensible as bundle" &&
cd "$VIMFILES/bundle" &&
git clone git://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible.git &&
echo "Adding sensible to $VIMRC" &&
echo 'runtime! plugin/sensible.vim' >>"$VIMRC" &&
echo "sensible setup OK."
}

palofobsidian_setup() {
echo "Getting palofobsidian color scheme as bundle" &&
cd "$VIMFILES/bundle" &&
git clone https://github.com/psmay/vim-colors-palofobsidian &&
echo "Adding colors palofobsidian to $VIMRC" &&
echo 'colors palofobsidian' >>"$VIMRC" &&
echo "palofobsidian setup OK."
}

(
subdir_setup &&
pathogen_setup &&
sensible_setup &&
palofobsidian_setup &&
echo OK
)

Sharing config between Windows gvim and Cygwin vim

With some additional preparation, it should be possible to keep vim configuration for Windows gvim and Cygwin vim in the same place.

The following script will symlink ~/.vim and ~/.vimrc to their respective Windows counterparts.

CYG_USERPROFILE="`cygpath "$USERPROFILE"`"
VIMRC="$CYG_USERPROFILE/_vimrc"
VIMFILES="$CYG_USERPROFILE/vimfiles"
if [ -e ~/.vim -o -e ~/.vimrc ]; then
	echo Move any existing ~/.vim or ~/.vimrc out of the way and try again.
else
	ln -s "$VIMRC" ~/.vimrc &&
	ln -s "$VIMFILES" ~/.vim
fi

Not an editor command: ^M

While loading scripts in the Windows dirs, vim in Cygwin may complain

E492: Not an editor command: ^M

This is a line endings issue. Windows gvim doesn't mind LF, but Cygwin can't do CRLF. Open the offending script and change the line endings:

:set ff=unix
:wq

Conditionals

Conditionals can be used to run whatever code is necessary for the current platform.

if has('win32') || has('win64')
    call SomeFunctionForWindowsNativeVim()
elseif has('win32unix')
    call SomeFunctionForCygwinVim()
else
    call SomeOtherFunction()
endif

See :help has, :help feature-list.

Windows

On Windows,

~/.vimrc is called %USERPROFILE%\_vimrc
~/.vim/ is called %USERPROFILE%\vimfiles\

where %USERPROFILE% refers to e.g. C:\Users\username.

The actual location for the vimrc file is given as part of the output of command:

:version

On Windows, the first part that relates is something like

   system vimrc file: "$VIM\vimrc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME\_vimrc"

On Mint, it looks more like

   system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"

You can find the values of $VIM and $HOME within vim itself:

:echo $VIM
:echo $HOME

See the help for the runtimepath (or rtp) setting to determine the system equivalent for ~/.vim:

:h 'rtp'

For unix, "$HOME/.vim" (i.e., "~/.vim") is listed, while for Windows "$HOME/vimfiles" is given instead.

For its current value, do

:echo &rtp

pathogen

pathogen is a handy script addition that allows vim addons to be installed as easy-to-install, easy-to-update, easy-to-remove bundles rather than being unloaded into the existing directories where they can't be easily managed.

Vundle and NeoBundle are newer takes on the same idea, but I haven't auditioned them yet.

Install

# Set up runtime directories
mkdir -p ~/.vim          # Windows: mkdir %USERPROFILE%\vimfiles
cd ~/.vim                # Windows: cd %USERPROFILE%\vimfiles
mkdir -p autoload bundle # Windows: mkdir autoload bundle

# Get pathogen.vim into autoload dir
cd autoload
wget https://raw.github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen/master/autoload/pathogen.vim
# curl: curl -Sso pathogen.vim https://raw.github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen/master/autoload/pathogen.vim
# web browser: Save https://raw.github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen/master/autoload/pathogen.vim to autoload dir

# Set pathogen to run from vimrc
echo "execute pathogen#infect()" >> ~/.vimrc # Windows: ... >> %USERPROFILE%/_vimrc

Add modules

pathogen will rewrite rtp so that anything under the bundle directory will itself become a runtime path. This works especially nicely with modules retrievable from github.

# Example: Install palofobsidian color scheme
cd ~/.vim/bundle # Windows: cd %USERPROFILE%\vimfiles\bundle
git clone https://github.com/psmay/vim-colors-palofobsidian

# Then add `colors palofobsidian` to your vimrc.

Saving state

If you've got a notion to keep what's currently going on in your vim session as your new .vimrc, try

:mkvimrc filename

This should store the state to the file.

Embedding a per-file setting

It is possible to embed vim settings in a source file using a specially-formatted comment. Vim apparently scans the first and last few lines of a file it opens looking for something like this:

# vim:ts=4:sw=4

The source says to see :help auto-setting and :help modeline for exactly what to put there.

Pasting things without auto-indenting them

:set paste
Paste some code
:set nopaste

via

Set up new file types and syntaxes

Run this script to set up the user vim directories. Add syntax files to the syntax directory. Follow the example in filetype.vim (or /usr/share/vim/vim72/filetype.vim) to set up extensions to match those syntaxes. This script will add a line to your .vimrc to source this file, completing the circle.

#!/bin/sh
cd
mkdir .vim
cd .vim
mkdir doc
mkdir syntax
mkdir plugin
mkdir colors
echo '
" A decent example of associating a syntax with an extension
" au BufNewFile,BufRead *.g	setf antlr3
' >> filetype.vim
cd ..
echo '
" Add extra syntax types
source ~/.vim/filetype.vim
' >> .vimrc

256-color schemes at the terminal

Here's a short description of how to set up gvim color schemes to work in vim. The concept is elaborated upon elsewhere.

Correct a terminal that is misreporting itself

Vim must know that the terminal it's running in is 256-color capable; it detects this automatically if the environment is set correctly.

Requires ncurses (supplies tput).
Ubuntu: Requires ncurses-term (contains settings for gnome-256color).

In .correct-term-setting:

#!/bin/sh

# From a comment on
# http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/256_colors_in_vim

# In cygwin, make sure ncurses is installed (tput needs it).
# In ubuntu, be sure to install ncurses-term so that gnome-256color is
# recognized.

if [ "$TERM" = "xterm" ] ; then
	if [ -z "$COLORTERM" ] ; then
		if [ -z "$XTERM_VERSION" ] ; then
			echo "Warning: Terminal wrongly calling itself 'xterm'."
		else
			case "$XTERM_VERSION" in
			"XTerm(256)") TERM="xterm-256color" ;;
			"XTerm(88)") TERM="xterm-88color" ;;
			"XTerm") ;;
			*)
				echo "Warning: Unrecognized XTERM_VERSION: $XTERM_VERSION"
				;;
			esac
		fi
	else
		case "$COLORTERM" in
			gnome-terminal)
				# Those crafty Gnome folks require you to check COLORTERM,
				# but don't allow you to just *favor* the setting over TERM.
				# Instead you need to compare it and perform some guesses
				# based upon the value. This is, perhaps, too simplistic.
				TERM="gnome-256color"
				;;
			*)
				echo "Warning: Unrecognized COLORTERM: $COLORTERM"
				;;
		esac
	fi
fi

SCREEN_COLORS="`tput colors`"
if [ -z "$SCREEN_COLORS" ] ; then
	case "$TERM" in
		screen-*color-bce)
			echo "Unknown terminal $TERM. Falling back to 'screen-bce'."
			export TERM=screen-bce
			;;
		*-88color)
			echo "Unknown terminal $TERM. Falling back to 'xterm-88color'."
			export TERM=xterm-88color
			;;
		*-256color)
			echo "Unknown terminal $TERM. Falling back to 'xterm-256color'."
			export TERM=xterm-256color
			;;
	esac
	SCREEN_COLORS=`tput colors`
fi
if [ -z "$SCREEN_COLORS" ] ; then
	case "$TERM" in
		gnome*|xterm*|konsole*|aterm|[Ee]term)
			echo "Unknown terminal $TERM. Falling back to 'xterm'."
			export TERM=xterm
			;;
		rxvt*)
			echo "Unknown terminal $TERM. Falling back to 'rxvt'."
			export TERM=rxvt
			;;
		screen*)
			echo "Unknown terminal $TERM. Falling back to 'screen'."
			export TERM=screen
			;;
	esac
	SCREEN_COLORS=`tput colors`
fi

In .bashrc:

if [ -f ~/.correct-term-setting ]; then
    . ~/.correct-term-setting
fi

Correct mintty on Cygwin

mintty defaults to reporting itself as "xterm". Technically, it should be something like "mintty-256color", but "xterm-256color" will typically work.

mintty: Options : Terminal : Type = "xterm-256color"

Correct iTerm 2 on OS X

Set iTerm's terminal setting to "xterm-256color".

Install scheme degrader for vim

A script is used to adapt color schemes intended for gvim to work with console vim by converting to the nearest 256-color-safe equivalenta.

Install CSApprox.

Install the color scheme

For example, sonofobsidian:

Install sonofobsidian scheme in ~/.vim/colors.

In .vimrc:

colorscheme sonofobsidian

Use like `less` (but with syntax colors)

some-script-gen | vim -c 'set ft=somelanguage' -R -

It will actually work with as little as vim -, but:

-c 'set ft=somelanguage' (e.g. -c 'set ft=perl') causes the text to be properly highlighted for the given language
-R sets readonly mode so that you can quit with :q instead of :q!

Cheat sheets

If these pages vanish from the web, I've also seen them in the Wayback Machine, so no worries.

Vim

Contents

Super-quick bootstrap with pathogen, sensible, and palofobsidian

Sharing config between Windows gvim and Cygwin vim

Not an editor command: ^M

Conditionals

Windows

pathogen

Install

Add modules

Saving state

Embedding a per-file setting

Pasting things without auto-indenting them

Set up new file types and syntaxes

256-color schemes at the terminal

Correct a terminal that is misreporting itself

Correct mintty on Cygwin

Correct iTerm 2 on OS X

Install scheme degrader for vim

Install the color scheme

Use like `less` (but with syntax colors)

Cheat sheets

Navigation menu

Personal tools

Namespaces

Variants

Views

More

Search

Navigation

Tools

Vim

Contents

Super-quick bootstrap with pathogen, sensible, and palofobsidian

Sharing config between Windows gvim and Cygwin vim

Not an editor command: ^M

Conditionals

Windows

pathogen

Install

Add modules

Saving state

Embedding a per-file setting

Pasting things without auto-indenting them

Set up new file types and syntaxes

256-color schemes at the terminal

Correct a terminal that is misreporting itself

Correct mintty on Cygwin

Correct iTerm 2 on OS X

Install scheme degrader for vim

Install the color scheme

Use like less (but with syntax colors)

Cheat sheets

Navigation menu

Search

Use like `less` (but with syntax colors)