Have you ever heard about Vim before? Many people say that it's a powerfull text editor. I started to use this tool couple months ago and i enjoy it. I'm not a hardcore Vim user that knows all commands or good setup, but i just want to share how do i setup my Vim.
The Basic Tweak
I assume you guys already know (at least) about how to use Vim, like navigation, searching, etc, you can googling "Vim cheat sheet" to get an overview of all the commands. Here is the very basic setup:
set autoread " Set to auto read when a file is changed from the outside
set backspace=indent,eol,start " more powerful backspacing
set clipboard=unnamed " access your system clipboard
set cmdheight=2 " Height of the command bar
syntax enable " enable syntax highlighting and plugin (for netrw)
set encoding=utf8 " Set utf8 as standard encoding and en_US as the standard language
set expandtab " convert tabs into spaces
set ffs=unix,dos,mac " Use Unix as the standard file type
set foldmethod=indent " Code folding
set foldlevel=99
set history=500 " Sets how many lines of history VIM has to remember
set incsearch " incremental search
set laststatus=2 " Always show the status line
set list " Show trailing white space
set listchars=tab:>·,trail:~,extends:>,precedes:<,space:. " eol:¬,tab:>·,trail:~,extends:>,precedes:<,space:.
set mouse=nicr
set magic " For regular expressions turn magic on
set nocompatible " enter the current millenium
set number " always show line numbers
set hidden
set ruler " Always show current position
set scrolloff=3 " when scrolling, keep cursor 3 lines away from screen border
set shiftwidth=2 " amount of block indenting
set smarttab " uses the shiftwidth instead of tabstop to delete indented line
set synmaxcol=200 " performance ???
set tabstop=2 " press tab, 2 spaces forward, 1 tab == 2 spaces
set wrap " Wrap lines
filetype plugin indent on
As you can see, there are a bunch of set command for each configuration settings, you can read the notes for each settings i set or you can check on Vim website for more details about the settings.
Try to copy and paste in your empty .vimrc file if you're on *nix system or _vimrc on Windows, then try re-open your vim and edit a file, you'll see (at least) there's color on the text and dots for each spaces. It actually does a lot than you think since i just mention about color and dots, that's why i write a note for each settings so you can read it :D.
Let's move to the next phase, we'll set some shortcuts to interact inside Vim.
let mapleader = ","
let maplocalleader = ","
set termguicolors
nnoremap <leader>N :setlocal number!<cr> " Toggle line numbers
" comma+s to save, comma+q to quit (does not save!), quit all without saving
nnoremap <leader>ss :w<cr>
nnoremap <leader>q :q!<cr>
nnoremap <leader>qa :qa!<cr>
let $MYVIMRC="/home/you_username/.vimrc"
nnoremap <leader>rv :source<Space>$MYVIMRC<cr> " Reload vimrc
nnoremap <leader>ev :tabnew $MYVIMRC<cr> " Edit vimrc
" Copy & paste to clipboard
noremap <Leader>Y "+y
noremap <Leader>P "+p
" change Escape key behaviour
imap <leader>q <Esc>
inoremap jj <Esc>
nnoremap <leader> z " Enable folding with the z
" Buffer key mappings
nnoremap <leader>l :bn<cr>
nnoremap <leader>h :bp<cr>
nnoremap <leader>0 :bf<cr>
nnoremap <leader>9 :bl<cr>
nnoremap <leader>dd :bd<cr>
" Managing tabs
nnoremap tn :tabnew<Space>
nnoremap tk :tabnext<CR>
nnoremap tj :tabprev<CR>
nnoremap th :tabfirst<CR>
nnoremap tl :tablast<CR>
nnoremap tc :tabclose<CR>
" :W sudo saves the file
" (useful for handling the permission-denied error)
command W w !sudo tee % > /dev/null
" navigate split screens easily
nmap <silent> <c-k> :wincmd k<CR>
nmap <silent> <c-j> :wincmd j<CR>
nmap <silent> <c-h> :wincmd h<CR>
nmap <silent> <c-l> :wincmd l<CR>
" Pressing Shift < or Shift > will let you indent/unident selected lines
vnoremap < <gv
vnoremap > >gv
" comma-1 insert "!" commenting
nnoremap <leader>1 :norm i!<cr>
vnoremap <leader>1 :norm i!<cr>
" comma-' insert """ commenting
nnoremap <leader>' :norm i"<cr>
vnoremap <leader>' :norm i"<cr>
" comma-3 insert "#" commenting
nnoremap <leader>3 :norm i#<cr>
vnoremap <leader>3 :norm i#<cr>
" comma-- insert "--" commenting
nnoremap <leader>- :norm i--<cr>
vnoremap <leader>- :norm i--<cr>
" comma-6 uncomment
nnoremap <leader>6 :norm ^x<cr>
vnoremap <leader>6 :norm ^x<cr>
" Make Y yank everything from the cursor to the end of the line. This makes Y
" act more like C or D because by default, Y yanks the current line (i.e. the
" same as yy).
noremap Y y$
I set mapleader with commad ( , ), you can change it if you want. So, those shortcuts help me a lot to interact inside Vim, for example, i can press , + ev to directly edit my .vimrc file on new buffer and press , + ss to save a file. It's easy right? But you might want to use :verbose imap <your_key> to check is there a conflict for each key-mappings that has been set.
And the last phase for the basic setup is just a miscellaneous setup, you can read the notes for a little information.
" Ignore compiled files
set wildignore=*.o,*~,*.pyc
if has("win16") || has("win32")
set wildignore+=.git\*,.hg\*,.svn\*
else
set wildignore+=*/.git/*,*/.hg/*,*/.svn/*,*/.DS_Store
endif
" autocompletion of files and commands behaves like shell
" (complete only the common part, list the options that match)
set wildmode=list:longest
" FINDING FILES: **********************************************************
" search down into subfolders
" provides tab-completion for all file-related tasks
set path+=**
" display all matching files when we tab complete
set wildmenu
set wildmode=list:longest,full
set lazyredraw
" NOW WE CAN:
" - hit tab to :find by partial match
" - use * to make it fuzzy
" THINGS TO CONSIDER:
" - :b lets you autocomplete any open buffer
" END FINDING FILES: **********************************************************
" FILE BROWSING: *********************************************************
" tweaks for browsing
let g:netrw_banner=0 " disable annoying banner
let g:netrw_browse_split=4 " open in prior window
let g:netrw_altv=1 " open splits to the right
let g:netrw_liststyle=3 " tree view
let g:netrw_list_hide=netrw_gitignore#Hide()
let g:netrw_list_hide.=',\(^\|\s\s\)\zs\.\S\+'
" NOW WE CAN:
" - :edit a folder to open a file browser
" - <CR>/v/t to open in an h-split/v-split/tab
" - check |netrw-browse-maps| for more mappings
" END FILE BROWSING: *********************************************************
" Enable 256 colors palette in Gnome Terminal
if $COLORTERM == 'gnome-terminal'
set t_Co=256
endif
set background=dark
" Set extra options when running in GUI mode
if has("gui_running")
set guioptions-=T
set guioptions-=e
set t_Co=256
set guitablabel=%M\ %t
set cursorcolumn!
" Set up the gui cursor to look nice
set guicursor=n-v-c:block-Cursor-blinkon0
set guicursor+=ve:ver35-Cursor
set guicursor+=o:hor50-Cursor
set guicursor+=i-ci:ver25-Cursor
set guicursor+=r-cr:hor20-Cursor
set guicursor+=sm:block-Cursor-blinkwait175-blinkoff150-blinkon175
endif
" better backup, swap and undos storage
set directory=~/.vim/dirs/tmp " directory to place swap files in
set backup " make backup files
set backupdir=~/.vim/dirs/backups " where to put backup files
set undofile " persistent undos - undo after you re-open the file
set undodir=~/.vim/dirs/undos
set viminfo+=n~/.vim/dirs/viminfo
" create needed directories if they don't exist
if !isdirectory(&backupdir)
call mkdir(&backupdir, "p")
endif
if !isdirectory(&directory)
call mkdir(&directory, "p")
endif
if !isdirectory(&undodir)
call mkdir(&undodir, "p")
endif
This setup is actually not from my own experiment, but i do a lot of searching and pick one by one setup that i found and combine it. For now, let's stop here just for the basic setup, i'll continue on part 2 article for the complete setup.
I hope it is useful for you, and you can grab all phase configs from here.