Hacking Vim 7.2 Description based on print version record. - Includes index

245 Pages·2010·2.619 MB·English

by  Schulz, Kim

Hacking Vim 7.2 H
a
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k
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Vim is one of the most powerful open source editors used g
What you will learn from this book
by programmers and system administrators around the
V
world. While Vim itself is inherently a powerful editor,
personalizing it to suit your needs can be a daunting task. n Create, install, and use Vim scripts to i
m
However, it is possible to do so with this book. extend its functionality

7
This book contains examples that cover everything from
n Personalize Vim to suit your needs .
personalizing Vim according to the user’s work cycle 2
to optimizations that will boost the user’s productivity.
The main focus of this book is to make your life, as a Vim n Optimize your Vim editor to be faster and
user, easier. more responsive
After an introduction covering the derivation of Vim
n Navigate through files faster while editing
and its relatives from the vi editor, the author explains
multiple files
basic changes that you can make to the appearance of the
Vim editor. Further chapters cover improved navigation
through files and buffers in Vim; speeding up your work n Boost your productivity by using templates,
C o m m u n i t y E x p e r i e n c e D i s t i l l e d
with templates, autocompletion, folding, sessions, and autocompletion, folding, sessions, and
registers; and formatting text and code, including using registers
external formatting scripts. The final comprehensive
chapter covers everything about using Vim scripts and
n Improve the formatting of your text and code
scripting to extend functionality.
by mastering simple tricks
Hacking Vim 7.2
Who this book is written for
n Extend Vim with scripts
If you are a Vim user who wants to get more out of
this legendary text editor, this book is for you. It focuses
n Retain your Vim configuration across
on making life easier for the intermediate to experienced computers by storing an online copy K
Vim users. i
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$ 39.99 US S
c Ready-to-use hacks with solutions for common situations
£ 24.99 UK h
u
encountered by users of the Vim editor
l
z
community experience distilled Prices do not include
local sales tax or VAT
P U B L I S H I N G
where applicable
Packt Publishing, Birmingham - Mumbai
Kim Schulz
www.PacktPub.com
Hacking Vim 7.2
Ready-to-use hacks with solutions for common
situations encountered by users of the Vim editor
Kim Schulz

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Hacking Vim 7.2
Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is
sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: April 2010
Production Reference: 1230410
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849510-50-9
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Asher Wishkerman ([email protected])
[FM-2 ]
Credits
Author Editorial Team Leader
Kim Schulz Mithun Sehgal
Reviewers Project Team Leader
Boris Fersing Lata Basantani
Thomas Moyer
Project Coordinator
Shubhanjan Chatterjee
Development Editors
Darshana D. Shinde
Amey Kanse Proofreader
Lynda Silwoski
Technical Editors
Madhumita Singh Production Coordinator
Adline Swetha Jesuthas
Conrad Sardinha
Cover Work
Copy Editor
Adline Swetha Jesuthas
Sneha Kulkarni
Indexer
Hemangini Bari
[FM-3 ]
About the Author
Kim Schulz has an M.Sc. in Software Engineering from Aalborg University
in Denmark. He has been an active developer in the Linux and open source
communities since 1997, and has worked with everything from translation and
bug fixing to producing a full-blown software system.
Throughout this entire time, Vim has been Kim's "weapon" of choice and it is the
first program he installs whenever he sits by a new computer.
Today Kim works as a Software engineer at CSR Plc, developing software for the
next generation mobile and wireless technologies.
Kim is also the owner of a web hosting and development company, Devteam
Denmark, that specializes in hosting of websites developed using the Fundanemt
Content Management System—a CMS that Kim is a co-developer of.
I would like to thank my wife, Line, for letting me take the time to
write this book. Without her positive attitude and help, I would
never have gotten this book ready.

I would also like to add a great thank you to Bram Moolenaar for
developing the Vim Editor—I appreciate the fruits of your work
every day.
[FM-4 ]
About the Reviewers
Boris Fersing is an amateur photographer and student in computational linguistics
at the University of Saarland, Germany. For his studies, he participated in many
projects and used many programming languages (SML, C/C++, Java, Ruby, Prolog)
and Vim was always his editor of choice.
He also worked as system administrator for a department of the University of
Saarland. With this job he learned how to use some Unix tools and improved his
knowledge about the Vim editor.
I really would like to thank the author for writing such a nice book.
It was a pleasure to review it. The information it contains is really
interesting. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to learn
more about Vim.
Thomas Moyer is a graduate student in Computer Science and Engineering at
Pennsylvania State University. He is currently looking at areas of Computer Security
including trusted computing hardware and Web 2.0 security. He spends a great deal
of time using Vim for editing both code and also writing papers. He has completed a
Master's degree from Penn State and is currently working on his Ph.D.
I would like to thank my wife and daughter for all of their support,
and also the rest of my family. I would also like to thank the
members of the Systems and Internet Infrastructure Security Lab
at Penn State for their continued support.
[FM- 5 ]

Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Vim 7
Getting Vim 8
vi, Vim, and friends 8
vi 9
STEVIE 9
Elvis 10
nvi 10
Vim 11
Vile 13
Compatibility 14
Vim is charityware 15
Common terminology 15
Summary 16
Chapter 2: Personalizing Vim 17
Where are the configuration files? 18
Changing the fonts 20
Changing color scheme 21
Personal highlighting 22
Example 1: Mark color characters after a certain column 24
Example 2: Mark tabs not used for indentation in code 25
Example 3: Preventing errors caused by IP addresses 26
A more informative status line 26
Toggle menu and toolbar 28
Adding your own menu and toolbar buttons 29
Adding a menu 29
Adding toolbar icons 32
Table of Contents
Modifying tabs 33
Work area personalization 37
Adding a more visual cursor 37
Adding line numbers 39
Spell checking your language 40
Adding helpful tool tips 43
Using abbreviations 46
Example 1: Using abbreviations for quick address insertion 47
Modifying key bindings 49
Summary 52
Chapter 3: Better Navigation 53
Faster navigation in a file 54
Context-aware navigation 54
Moving around within a code file 54
Moving in a code file 56
Navigating long lines 59
Faster navigation in Vim help 60
Faster navigation in multiple buffers 61
Open referenced files faster 62
Search and you will find 63
Search the current file 64
Example 1: Find the next occurrence of a word 64
Example 2: Search for a word under the cursor 65
Search in multiple files 65
Search the help system 67
X marks the spot 68
Visible markers—using signs 68
Hidden markers—using marks 71
Summary 72
Chapter 4: Production Boosters 73
Using templates 74
Using template files 74
Abbreviations as templates 76
Snippets with the snipMate script 78
Using tag lists 80
Easier taglist navigation 83
Other usages of taglists 83
Using autocompletion 84
Autocompletion with known words 84
Autocompletion using dictionary lookup 85
[ ii ]
Table of Contents
Omnicompletion 86
All-in-one completion 89
Using macro recording 90
Using sessions 93
Simple session usage 93
Satisfy your own session needs 96
Sessions as a project manager 97
Registers and undo branching 98
Using registers 99
The unnamed register 100
The small delete register 100
The numbered registers 100
The named registers 101
The read-only registers 101
The selection and drop registers 102
The black hole register 102
Search pattern register 102
The expression register 103
Using undo branching 103
Folding 107
Simple text file outlining 110
Using vimdiff to track the changes 111
Navigation in vimdiff 113
Using diff to track changes 114
Open files anywhere 115
Faster remote file editing 117
Summary 118
Chapter 5: Advanced Formatting 121
Formatting text 121
Putting text into paragraphs 122
Aligning text 124
Marking headlines 125
Creating lists 127
Formatting code 129
Autoindent 130
Smartindent 130
Cindent 131
Indentexpr 132
Fast code-block formatting 132
Auto format pasted code 135
[ iii ]