{% extends "_post.html" %}
{% hyde
title: "Coming Home to Vim"
snip: "I'm sorry I ever left, baby."
created: 2010-09-20 18:15:00
flattr: true
%}
{% block article %}
I'm a programmer. I work with text files for 6-12 hours every weekday so I care
about the text editor I use. If switching to a different editor can increase my
efficiency by even 10% it would save a good chunk of my time and let me get
back to making cool things.
I don't buy the "you're thinking 90% of the time and only typing 10% of the
time, so your editor doesn't really matter" argument. Even if the premise is
true, the conclusion is wrong.
If I think for 10 minutes and then start typing, I want the typing to take the
shortest time possible so I can get back to thinking. Any time I spend typing
is an interruption that I want to minimize so I can keep my train of thought.
I recently started using [Vim][] as my primary editor. As I'm adjusting I'm
finding a lot of [the][arrows] [blog][nutheads] [posts][mind] [people][katz]
[have][nvie] [written][grok] [about][home] Vim very helpful, so I'm hoping this
post will help people too.
[Vim]: http://www.vim.org/
[arrows]: http://jeetworks.org/node/89
[nutheads]: http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html
[mind]: http://wekeroad.com/2010/07/29/vim-is-your-daddy/
[katz]: http://yehudakatz.com/2010/07/29/everyone-who-tried-to-convince-me-to-use-vim-was-wrong/
[nvie]: http://nvie.com/posts/how-i-boosted-my-vim/
[grok]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most-productive-shortcut-with-vim/1220118#1220118
[home]: http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2008/10/10/coming-home-to-vim
[TOC]
Some Background About Me
------------------------
I used Vim exclusively from about 2002 to 2005. I never really learned much
about it and mostly used it as a glorified [nano][].
In 2006 I decided it was time for a change. I wanted an editor that "fit" with
OS X. I tried [SubEthaEdit][] for a while and it was kind of cool. The
collaborative editing was more polished than any other version I've seen,
though I didn't have much use for it.
As cool as SubEthaEdit was, I always felt like there was a better editor out
there for me. Then I found [TextMate][].
At the time I thought TextMate was amazing (and it really was). It *looked*
like a Mac application. It was super easy to learn (all the OS X text movement
commands just worked). There were bundles for everything.
I still used Vim occasionally (like when I had a job and only had a Windows
machine), but for the most part I was a TextMate kid.
After using TextMate for four years I decided it was time for another change.
Development on TextMate has stalled while TextMate Forever (err, TextMate 2) is
in the works. I started thinking about Vim (and reading blog posts by others
about how they switched back) and decided to give it another try.
A few months ago I bought [Learning the vi and Vim Editors][] and went
cold-turkey with Vim as my main text editor. I haven't looked back since.
[nano]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano_(text_editor)
[SubEthaEdit]: http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
[TextMate]: http://macromates.com/
[Learning the vi and Vim Editors]: http://amzn.com/059652983X
Why I Switched to TextMate
--------------------------
As I mentioned before, there were a few reasons I switched to TextMate in the
first place.
First of all: it looks and acts like a real OS X application. You can drag
files onto the icon to open them, it supports all the default OS X text
movement commands, and the chrome looks like it belongs on OS X. I don't know
if [MacVim][] was around at the time, but if it was I never found it.
This matters. The effort required to get started with a new editor is
dramatically reduced if that editor supports all the conventions of the
operating system you use every day.
It also has a vibrant community of people writing bundles for it, so there was
support for almost anything I wanted to use.
[MacVim]: http://code.google.com/p/macvim/
Why I Came Back to Vim
----------------------
I came back to Vim for a number of reasons.
First of all: I started reading about and desiring features that didn't seem to
be coming to TextMate any time soon. The biggest of those was split windows.
I saw the appeal of split windows right away and now that I use them I can't
imagine not having them.
Another reason is version control. A while ago I started keeping my
[dotfiles][] in a [Mercurial][] repository which makes it extremely easy to set
up new machines. Vim keeps all of its configuration in two simple places:
a simple `~/.vimrc` file and a `~/.vim` directory full of plain text files.
Vim's plain text configuration files and plugins are very easy to version
control. They diff well, unlike TextMate's multiple `Bundles` directories and
ugly XML file format.
Vim's community has been around far longer than TextMate's so there's an even
richer set of plugins, bundles and syntax files available.
Another reason people give for enjoying Vim is that it runs everywhere. Yes,
it's nice to have my favorite editor available when I SSH into a machine, but
it's not a huge deal if I don't. I almost always edit files on my own machine
and then deploy them with an automated script of some kind, so editing on
a server is very rare for me.
[dotfiles]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/dotfiles/
[Mercurial]: http://hg-scm.org/
Core Differences
----------------
For me, Vim and TextMate are very different. TextMate relies mainly on
keyboard shortcuts (involving Shift, Ctrl, Cmd and Alt) to do more than simply
edit text. Vim uses a "modal editing" idea to accomplish the same task.
TextMate's philosophy is much the same as any normal OS X application's, and
I said that acting like the OS reduces the barrier of entry for a text editor,
so why do I prefer Vim's philosophy?
First I should prefix my answer with this: I'm not averse to a learning curve
for something as important to me as a text editor. Yes, it's awesome if
I don't need to unnecessarily rewire my brain, but if it's going to save me
a lot of time then I'm willing to cut a bit of slack here.
My problem with TextMate's philosophy can be summed up in one word:
"shadowing".
If I want to define a new command in a bundle (or if someone else has already
done it), I'm never really sure if I'm "overwriting" some other command that my
fingers know but my brain doesn't really register.
By the time I try to use the default command it could be days or weeks after
I defined the custom one, and I need to figure out what I did all over again.
It's quite frustrating.
Vim's "insert" mode means that when I'm editing text I'm using the normal OS
X text movement shortcuts that I know and love. When I want to do something
special I enter normal mode and don't have to worry about shadowed commands
(Vim's leader key also helps with this).
Vim's "Feeling"
---------------
Vim's normal mode has a unique "feeling" that I haven't seen in any other text
editor (although [E][] may [change that][modalE]). I've heard it described in
a number of ways, and I think that while no one analogy fully explains it,
together they give a pretty good description.
[E]: http://www.e-texteditor.com/
[modalE]: http://e-texteditor.com/blog/2010/beyond-vi
### A "Language" of Text Editing
One way to think about Vim's normal-mode commands is like a language. You have
"verbs" and "nouns". For example: the "change" command (`c`) would be a verb
and the "word" item (`w`) is a noun. You can combine them to form imperative
sentences that talk about what you want to do with your text.
The wonderful part about this is that whenever you learn a new verb (like
"delete" (`d`)) you can immediately apply it to all the nouns you know, and
vice versa.
Vim also has "adjectives" like "inside" and "around" (`i` and `a`) that let you
craft sentences like "change inside parenthesis" (`ci(` or `cib`). Once you
learn one of these you can immediately apply it to all the verbs and nouns you
already know.
### The Physics of Text
The second way to describe the feeling of Vim is "physics". It's a much less
concrete description but I think it's still useful.
If I throw a bowling ball into the air it behaves much the same way as if
I throw a turkey sandwich. They might have very different effects when they
land on someone but the act of throwing them is pretty much the same.
Vim's operators/actions/verbs act the same way. `daw` has a very different
effect than `da{` but they can both be understood with a basic underlying
principle: `da<something>` will "delete around `<something>`".
### "Programming" Your Editing
The last way that I hear people talking about Vim's editing is: "it feels like
you're 'programming' your text".
This analogy is often made by programmers (obviously) and I think it works on
more than one level.
First: Vim's basic editing commands can be likened to function calls. `daw`
can be thought of a running a function like `delete(type='word', around=True)`.
I don't think this way (I prefer the language and physics analogies) but other
people do.
Although I don't think of the *basic* Vim commands as programming I do see
some aspects of it in other areas. For example: say I define a leader command
in my `~/.vimrc` file:
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>1 yypVr=
I think of this as defining `<leader>1` to be a function that performs the
following actions:
* Yank/copy the current line.
* Paste it below (and move down to the pasted version).
* Select the copied line.
* Replace every character with `=`.
Another more obvious "programming" aspect of Vim is creating macros. Macros are
like tiny little functions you create to help you when you're editing a file.
You can define them, execute them, and even edit them by pasting, editing and
yanking them back.
Getting Started
---------------
When I switched back to Vim I did a few things that helped make my transition
stick.
First: I bought [Learning the vi and Vim Editors][] and read it cover to cover.
It helps quite a bit to know the history behind Vim, and the book also teaches
you the basics of Vim's editing commands.
I also looked through [the Vim subreddit][rvim] to find some good blog posts about
switching. A lot of people have written about it and it was very helpful to
read about their experiences.
And finally, the most important part: I switched cold-turkey. Vim runs everywhere, so
there's really no excuse for not doing this. Every decent OS has a version of
Vim that makes insert mode "just work" for their OS (like gvim or MacVim), so
the barrier to entry these days is pretty low.
You can get Vim and start using it right away by staying in insert mode most of
the time. Then you can start learning its real features at your own pace.
Trying to use two different editors at once just slows down the learning
process and makes you less productive in both.
[rvim]: http://reddit.com/r/vim/
Making Vim More Useful
----------------------
One of the flaws of Vim is that it takes quite a bit of configuration to make
it behave in a decent way. The defaults are backwards-compatible with vi (i.e.
older than most college students) and not very helpful.
Here are a few of the things I do to make Vim a bit more palatable.
**A quick side note:** even if you don't use Vim, you *need* to [remap your
capslock key][capslock] to something useful. Just do it, you'll thank me.
[capslock]: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RemapCapsLock
### Important .vimrc Lines
I won't go through every line in [my `~/.vimrc` file][sjlvimrc], but here are some of the
lines that I simply could not live without.
[sjlvimrc]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/dotfiles/src/tip/vim/.vimrc
First, a few lines that you absolutely must have:
:::vim
filetype off
call pathogen#runtime_append_all_bundles()
filetype plugin indent on
set nocompatible
set modelines=0
The `filetype` and `call` lines are for loading Pathogen, which is described in
the bundles section. See [Pathogen's docs][pathogendocs] to learn about why the
first `filetype` line is there.
[pathogendocs]: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2332
`set nocompatible` gets rid of all the crap that Vim does to be vi compatible.
It's 2010 -- we don't need to be compatible with vi at the expense of
functionality any more.
The `modelines` bit prevents some [security exploits][] having to do with
modelines in files. I never use modelines so I don't miss any functionality
here.
[security exploits]: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-vim-maintainers/2007-June/004020.html
Next I set my tab settings:
:::vim
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set softtabstop=4
set expandtab
I like all tabs to expand to four spaces. Check out [this Vimcast][vctabs] to
learn more about each of these options.
[vctabs]: http://vimcasts.org/episodes/tabs-and-spaces/
Next are a few options that just make things better:
:::vim
set encoding=utf-8
set scrolloff=3
set autoindent
set showmode
set showcmd
set hidden
set wildmenu
set wildmode=list:longest
set visualbell
set cursorline
set ttyfast
set ruler
set backspace=indent,eol,start
set laststatus=2
set relativenumber
set undofile
Each of these lines are basically to make Vim behave in a sane manner. The two
"interesting" ones are the last two, and both deal with features that are
[new in Vim 7.3][vim73].
[vim73]: http://groups.google.com/group/vim_announce/browse_thread/thread/66c02efd1523554b
`relativenumber` changes Vim's line number column to display how far away each
line is from the current one, instead of showing the absolute line number.
I almost never care what numeric line I'm on in a file (and if I do I can see
it in the status line), so I don't miss the normal line numbers. I *do* care
how far away a particular line might be, because it tells me what number I need
to use with motion commands like `d<NUMBER>d`.
`undofile` tells Vim to create `<FILENAME>.un~` files whenever you edit a file.
These files contain undo information so you can undo previous actions even
after you close and reopen a file.
Next I change the `<leader>` key:
:::vim
let mapleader = ","
For me `,` is easier to type than `\`. I use leader commands constantly so it's
worth changing.
The next thing I do is tame searching/moving:
:::vim
nnoremap / /\v
vnoremap / /\v
set ignorecase
set smartcase
set gdefault
set incsearch
set showmatch
set hlsearch
nnoremap <leader><space> :noh<cr>
nnoremap <tab> %
vnoremap <tab> %
The first two lines fix Vim's horribly broken default regex "handling" by
automatically inserting a `\v` before any string you search for. This turns
off Vim's crazy default regex characters and makes searches use normal regexes.
I already know Perl/Python compatible regex formatting, why would I want to
learn another scheme?
`ignorecase` and `smartcase` together make Vim deal with case-sensitive search
intelligently. If you search for an all-lowercase string your search will be
case-insensitive, but if one or more characters is uppercase the search will be
case-sensitive. Most of the time this does what you want.
`gdefault` applies substitutions globally on lines. For example, instead of
`:%s/foo/bar/g` you just type `:%s/foo/bar/`. This is almost always what you
want (when was the last time you wanted to only replace the first occurrence of
a word on a line?) and if you need the previous behavior you just tack on the
`g` again.
`incsearch`, `showmatch` and `hlsearch` work together to highlight search
results (as you type). It's really quite handy, as long as you have the next
line as well.
The `<leader><space>` mapping makes it easy to clear out a search by typing
`,<space>`. This gets rid of the distracting highlighting once I've found what
I'm looking for.
The last two lines make the tab key match bracket pairs. I use this to move
around all the time and `<tab>` is a hell of a lot easier to type than `%`.
The next section makes Vim handle long lines correctly:
:::vim
set wrap
set textwidth=79
set formatoptions=qrn1
set colorcolumn=85
These lines manage my line wrapping settings and also show a colored column at
85 characters (so I can see when I write a too-long line of code).
See [`:help fo-table`][fotable] and the Vimcasts on [soft wrapping][] and [hard wrapping][] for more information.
[fotable]: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/change.html#fo-table
[soft wrapping]: http://vimcasts.org/episodes/soft-wrapping-text/
[hard wrapping]: http://vimcasts.org/episodes/hard-wrapping-text/
Next comes something other TextMate refugees may like:
:::vim
set list
set listchars=tab:▸\ ,eol:¬
This makes Vim show invisible characters with the same characters that TextMate
uses. You might need to adjust your color scheme so they're not too
distracting. [This Vimcast][vcinvis] has more information.
[vcinvis]: http://vimcasts.org/episodes/show-invisibles/
New Vim users will want the following lines to teach them to do things right:
:::vim
nnoremap <up> <nop>
nnoremap <down> <nop>
nnoremap <left> <nop>
nnoremap <right> <nop>
inoremap <up> <nop>
inoremap <down> <nop>
inoremap <left> <nop>
inoremap <right> <nop>
nnoremap j gj
nnoremap k gk
This will disable the arrow keys while you're in normal mode to help you learn
to use `hjkl`. Trust me, you want to learn to use `hjkl`. Playing a lot of
[Nethack][] also helps.
[Nethack]: http://www.nethack.org/
It also disables the arrow keys in insert mode to force you to get back into
normal mode the instant you're done inserting text, which is the "right way" to
do things.
It also makes j and k work the way you expect instead of working in some
archaic "movement by file line instead of screen line" fashion.
Next, get rid of that stupid goddamned help key that you will invaribly hit
*constantly* while aiming for escape:
:::vim
inoremap <F1> <ESC>
nnoremap <F1> <ESC>
vnoremap <F1> <ESC>
I also like to make `;` do the same thing as `:` -- it's one less key to hit
every time I want to save a file:
:::vim
nnoremap ; :
I don't remap `:` back to `;` because it seems to break a bunch of plugins.
Finally, I really like TextMate's "save on losing focus" feature. I can't
remember a time when I *didn't* want to save a file after tabbing away from my
editor (especially with version control and Vim's persistent undo):
:::vim
au FocusLost * :wa
Those are the most important bits of my `~/.vimrc` file. Next I'll talk about
the wonderful namespace of customization that is Vim's `<leader>` key.
### Using the Leader
Vim dedicates an entire keyboard key for user-specific customizations. This is
called the "leader" and by default it's mapped to `\`. As I mentioned in the
previous section I prefer to use `,` instead.
Each person will find little things they type or execute often and want to
create shortcuts for those things. The leader is a kind of "namespace" to keep
those customizations separate and prevent them from shadowing default commands.
Here are a few of the things I use leader commands for. You'll certainly have
different ideas than I do, but this might give you an idea of what you can do.
I use `,W` to mean "strip all trailing whitespace in the current file" so I can
clean things up quickly:
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>W :%s/\s\+$//<cr>:let @/=''<CR>
I use Ack a lot (described below), so I mapped a leader key for it:
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>a :Ack
I work with HTML often, so I have `,ft` mapped to a "fold tag" function:
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>ft Vatzf
I also work with Nick Sergeant and he likes his CSS properties sorted, so
here's a `,S` mapping that sorts them for me:
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>S ?{<CR>jV/^\s*\}?$<CR>k:sort<CR>:noh<CR>
This next mapping imitates TextMates `Ctrl+Q` function to re-hardwrap
paragraphs of text:
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>q gqip
I have a `,v` mapping to reselect the text that was just pasted so I can
perform commands (like indentation) on it:
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>v V`]
This last mapping lets me quickly open up my `~/.vimrc` file in a vertically
split window so I can add new things to it on the fly.
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>ev <C-w><C-v><C-l>:e $MYVIMRC<cr>
### Quicker Escaping
One thing you'll find yourself constantly doing in Vim is moving from insert
mode to normal mode. The default way to do this is by hitting Escape, but that
key is out of the way and hard to hit.
Another way is to use `Ctrl+C` or `Ctrl+[`, but I don't like using a chord for
something I press that often.
I personally use `jj` to exit back to normal mode. The only time I've ever
actually tried to hit two `j`'s in a row is just now while writing this entry,
so it doesn't conflict with my normal typing at all:
:::vim
inoremap jj <ESC>
### Working With Split Windows
Being able to split my editor window and see more than one file at once is one
of the main reasons I switched to Vim. I know I'm not alone here after reading
various posts around the internet asking for this feature in TextMate.
Vim's default commands for interacting with splits, however, are kind of
clunky. I've added a few mappings to my `~/.vimrc` that make things work a bit
smoother.
This first mapping makes `,w` open a new vertical split and switch over to it.
Because really, how often do you split your window and not want to do something
in the new split?
:::vim
nnoremap <leader>w <C-w>v<C-w>l
You might notice that this mapping is for vertical splits. I almost *never*
use horizontal splits. All of my screens are widescreen, so I can fit several
files onscreen if they're split vertically. Horizontal splits don't let me see
enough of the file. If I *really* want a horizontal split I can use `<C-w>s`
to get one.
This next set of mappings maps `<C-[h/j/k/l]>` to the commands needed to move
around your splits. If you remap your capslock key to `Ctrl` it makes for very
easy navigation.
:::vim
nnoremap <C-h> <C-w>h
nnoremap <C-j> <C-w>j
nnoremap <C-k> <C-w>k
nnoremap <C-l> <C-w>l
Aesthetics
----------
I know some people say: "looks don't matter, the only thing that's important is
functionality". That's completely wrong.
If I'm looking at something for multiple hours each day it had damn well better
look pretty. There are three main steps to making Vim look pretty (for me, on
OS X -- your mileage may vary).
First: get [MacVim][]. It makes Vim look (and behave) like a native Mac
application. It helps it avoid standing out like a sore thumb among your other
applications. Linux and Windows users will probably want gvim.
Next: pick a decent font. I prefer 12 point [Menlo][]. You might have
a different preference, but at least try out a few and find one that has a nice
balance between line height (so you can get a good amount of lines on the
screen) and readability (slashed zeros, please).
Finally: find a good color scheme. I've been using [a slightly modified
version][myMolokai] of [Molokai][] (a port of the TextMate [Monokai][] theme)
since I came back to Vim, but recently I've also started flirting with
[Mustang][] and [Clouds Midnight][]. Spend an hour and find something that
looks good to you.
Here's what my current setup looks like:
[Menlo]: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/06/font-changes-coming-to-mac-os-x-snow-leopard.ars
[myMolokai]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/dotfiles/src/tip/vim/colors/molokai.vim
[Molokai]: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2340
[Monokai]: http://www.monokai.nl/blog/2006/07/15/textmate-color-theme/
[Mustang]: http://hcalves.deviantart.com/art/Mustang-Vim-Colorscheme-98974484
[Clouds Midnight]: http://forr.st/~yZn
Bundles I Use
-------------
Vim has been around for a *long* time, and many people have written extensions
for it. Here are a few of the bundles I couldn't live without in my day-to-day
editing.
### Pathogen
First of all: [Tim Pope][] has created the wonderful [Pathogen][] plugin that
makes managing *other* Vim plugins painless. Instead of scattering their files
throughout your `~/.vim/` folder you can keep their files inside a single
folder in `~/.vim/bundles/`.
Install it and keep your sanity.
[Tim Pope]: http://github.com/tpope
[Pathogen]: http://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen
### PeepOpen
One of TextMate's "killer features" is its `Cmd+T` key. It lets you open files
quickly by typing fragments of their names.
There are a number of Vim plugins out there that try to emulate it. My
favorite is [PeepOpen][]. Yes, it's OS X only and costs money, but it's worth
it. It looks good and "just works".
PeepOpen has some nifty little features, like showing Git metadata in the file
list. I've [offered a patch][] to add the same functionality for Mercurial but
haven't heard back from the developers.
If you don't use OS X (or want a free alternative to PeepOpen) I hear the
[Command-T][] plugin is quite nice.
[PeepOpen]: http://peepcode.com/products/peepopen
[offered a patch]: http://github.com/topfunky/PeepOpen-Issues/issues#issue/91
[Command-T]: https://wincent.com/products/command-t
### NERDTree
One plugin you'll hear about in almost all of these "switching to Vim" blog
posts is [NERDTree][]. It's a little plugin for browsing files in your project,
and it works great. There's no better "TextMate file-drawer" plugin around.
[NERDTree]: http://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree
### NERDCommenter
Want to be able to comment and uncomment code with a few keypresses? You need
[NERDCommenter][]. It's surprising that Vim doesn't have decent commenting
functionality built in, but NERDCommenter fixes that.
I really only use this plugin for one single function: "toggle comment" with
`<leader>c<space>`. That function alone is worth installing it.
[NERDCommenter]: http://github.com/scrooloose/nerdcommenter
### Ack
If you're a programmer and you don't know about [Ack][], you need to start
using it now. It's far, far better than grep.
The [Ack plugin][ack.vim] for Vim integrates Ack with Vim's quickfix window so
you can easily search and jump to results.
As I mentioned in the section about leader mappings I've got `,a` mapped to
bring up Ack all ready to search.
[Ack]: http://betterthangrep.com/
[ack.vim]: http://github.com/mileszs/ack.vim
### Snipmate
Another feature of TextMate that was *amazing* when I first saw it was
snippets. [SnipMate][] is a Vim plugin that emulates TextMate snippets.
It also stores them in easily-version-controlled plain text files, which is
a bonus over TextMate's snippets.
[SnipMate]: http://github.com/msanders/snipmate.vim
### Sparkup
[Sparkup][] is pretty much a great port of [Zen Coding][] for Vim. If you write
HTML at all this plugin will save you a ton of typing.
In a nutshell it lets you type something like:
:::text
div.content>h1.post-title+p{Sample Content}
Press `Cmd+E` and it will expand to this:
:::html
<div class="content">
<h1 class="post-title"></h1>
<p>Sample Content</p>
</div>
It's far less typing and it adds up over time.
[Sparkup]: http://github.com/rstacruz/sparkup
[Zen Coding]: http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/
### Yankring
Vim's copying and pasting functionality (which uses registers) is very, very
powerful, but it's not exactly "user friendly". The [YankRing][] plugin adds
a lot *more* power, but also adds a few features that make copying and pasting
much more pleasant.
For example, after you paste some text you can replace that paste with the
previous item you copied with `Ctrl-P`. You can cycle back further by just
hitting `Ctrl-P` over and over.
YankRing also shares your yanked text between Vim windows, which makes things
"just work" when you want to paste text from one window into another.
You can also show a list of all your previously yanked text with `:YRShow`.
Mapping that command to a key is quite helpful:
:::vim
nnoremap <silent> <F3> :YRShow<cr>
inoremap <silent> <F3> <ESC>:YRShow<cr>
YankRing offers a ton of other cool functionality but I haven't had the time or
motivation to really dig in and find out how to use it.
[YankRing]: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1234
### Surround (and Repeat)
Another of Time Pope's plugins that I use all the time is the [Surround][]
plugin. It adds another layer to Vim's physics: "surrounding items".
For example, you can "change surrounding single quotes to double quotes" by
using `cs'"`. Or if you're writing something in Markdown and want to italicize
a word you can use `ysiW*`.
All the nouns and verbs you already know can be used, which fits with Vim's
philosophy and makes it extremely powerful.
The [Repeat][] plugin is necessary to make these surround actions repeatable
with `.`.
[Surround]: http://github.com/tpope/vim-surround
[Repeat]: http://github.com/tpope/vim-repeat
### Slime
Emacs users often tout SLIME as one of Emacs' "killer features". When writing
LISP code it's unchallengably awesome.
Vim doesn't have anything like SLIME. It's not integrated with any language the
way Emacs is coupled to LISP. You can, however, achieve *some* of the power of
SLIME in Vim.
[Jonathan Palardy][] has written a little Vim plugin called [Slime.vim][] that
lets Vim easily communicate with a screen session, probably one running a REPL
for some language like LISP, Python or Ruby.
The general idea is that you'll fire up LISP in a screen session, then go over
to Vim and use `Ctrl+C Ctrl+C` to put chunks of code in your Vim window into
the screen session.
It works and is quite handy for when you want to experiment with the contents
of a file. Add a mapping for shoving over the entire file and you're all set to
bash out and test some code quickly.
I personally use [a slightly modified version][mySlime] that removes a bit of
the flexibility I don't need to make it quicker to use. Maybe some day I'll
expand on it and push it up to BitBucket and GitHub in a repo of its own.
[Slime.vim]: http://technotales.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/like-slime-for-vim/
[Jonathan Palardy]: http://technotales.wordpress.com/
[mySlime]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/dotfiles/src/tip/vim/plugin/slime.vim
### Scratch
The [Scratch][] plugin adds a function to quickly open a "scratch" buffer that
will never be saved.
I have it mapped to `<leader><tab>` and use it with slime to quickly stick
a bit of code that I don't want in my actual file into the REPL.
[Scratch]: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=664
### Rainbow Parentheses
[Rainbow Parentheses][] is a Vim plugin that colorizes parentheses, square
brackets, curly brackets and angle brackets according to their nesting.
It's easiest to describe what this looks like with a screenshot:
I use [a slightly modified version][myRainbow]. I have it mapped to `<leader>R`
and off by default. When I'm dealing with a particularly hairy piece of code
that has lots of nesting I simply hit `<leader>R` and get some color that helps
me keep my place.
[Rainbow Parentheses]: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1561
[myRainbow]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/dotfiles/src/tip/vim/bundle/rainbow/
Things I Want
-------------
Although Vim is definitely my new favorite editor, this blog post wouldn't be
complete without a few complaints.
If anyone fixes/implements any of these I'll gladly buy them several beers.
### HTML Indentation that Doesn't Suck
I write a lot of HTML. One thing that annoys the hell out of me is Vim's
"smart" indenting of HTML. I've tried every combination of `cindent`,
`smartindent` and `autoindent` and I can't seem to get Vim to behave sanely.
The problem is that sometimes when I press return after a tag that I've already
created Vim will unindent the new line *and the previous line*. This is
excruciatingly annoying.
All I want is the following:
* When I press return, create a new line at the same indentation level as the
current one. Don't try to be clever and adjust the indent of new line in
any fashion.
* If I press tab at the beginning of a line, indent the *current line* by
one tabstop.
* If I press backspace at the beginning of a line, delete one tabstop on that
line only.
Please, someone make this happen and restore my sanity.
### Python Support for Slime
Earlier I mentioned that I use the slime plugin. One language it doesn't work
very well with is Python, because it preserves whitespace when it moves the
code over the REPL.
This is a problem with Python because if you try to move over an indented block
of code you'll get "unexpected indent" problems.
I'd love for someone to tweak slime so it intelligently unindents Python code.
I have some ideas on how this could work but unfortunately I don't have the
time to implement them.
### Gundo
A little-known fact about Vim is that it doesn't keep a list of your undo
history, it keeps a *tree*.
If I make 5 changes, undo 2 and then make 2 more Vim keeps track of *all* of
them. You can use `:undolist` to see the list of leaves in this "undo tree".
What I want is for someone to make an awesome "graphical undo" plugin that
shows a graph of the undo tree, much like Mercurial's graphlog extension shows
a graph of the changesets in a repository.
This graph would actually be simpler than Mercurial's graphlog because there
are no merges to deal with.
For bonus points let me browse the tree with `j` and `k`, press `p` to preview
a diff of what would happen if I went back to that version, and press `<CR>` to
actually go back.
**UPDATE:** I got tired of waiting, so I [wrote it myself][Gundo].
[Gundo]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/gundo.vim/
### A Mercurial Version of Fugitive
The final thing I'd like is for someone to make a Mercurial plugin for Vim that
is as awesome as Tim Pope's [Fugitive][].
There's some Mercurial support for Vim out there, but for the most part it's
tied up in plugins that support multiple version control systems.
Any plugin that tries to support every system will fail at supporting one
single system perfectly, so I'd love for someone to come along and make an
*awesome* Vim plugin that lets you use Mercurial to its fullest while
inside Vim.
I simply don't know vimscript well enough to do this on my own, but if someone
else is interested I can certainly help out on the Mercurial and user interface
aspects.
[Fugitive]: http://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive
Overall Thoughts
----------------
Transitioning back to Vim after using TextMate for a few years wasn't trivial,
but I feel that it was worth the effort. I have features like split windows
now and there are plugins that can provide anything I miss from TextMate.
If TextMate 2 ever gets released it would have to do some pretty amazing things
for me to want to switch back.
Overall I'm very happy with Vim. There are a lot of things that could be
improved, especially with the default settings (who cares about vi
compatibility in 2010?), but a text editor is worth a learning curve.
In my eyes Vim has two huge advantages over almost any other editor out there.
The first is it's *huge* ecosystem of plugins and syntax definitions, which is
only rivaled by Emacs (and *possibly* TextMate, though I doubt it). The second
is it's "modal editing" philosophy, which is extremely powerful and hasn't been
adopted by any other mainstream editor (except for *very* recent versions of
E).
If you've got questions or comments you should [find me on Twitter][twsl] and
let me know.
[twsl]: {{links.twsl}}
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