Vim and VI
Have been installed on every single system I’ve ever had or SSH’d into for the last 25 years. And while you can supe it up to be quite jazzy and IDE’like.
That’s not it’s main strength in my opinion. It’s availability, stability, consistency and performance are still unrivaled in the editing world.
I’ve gone through phases of installing a bunch of plugins and getting it all setup with tab completion for every language under the sun, fancy file handling, git management etc. However I end up never remembering half the shit I have installed and generally still stick to the basic functionality that’s stuck in my muscle memory.
.vimrc
Here’s my .vimrc, it’s not much but it’s mine.
# load vim-plug if it's not installed
if empty(glob('~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim'))
silent !curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs
\ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim
autocmd VimEnter * PlugInstall --sync | source $MYVIMRC
endif
" install my huge selection of plugins
call plug#begin(expand('~/.vim/plugged'))
Plug 'arcticicestudio/nord-vim'
Plug 'scrooloose/syntastic'
Plug 'airblade/vim-gitgutter'
call plug#end()
" Syntastic settings
set statusline+=%#warningmsg#
set statusline+=%{SyntasticStatuslineFlag()}
set statusline+=%*
let g:syntastic_always_populate_loc_list = 1
let g:syntastic_auto_loc_list = 1
let g:syntastic_check_on_open = 1
let g:syntastic_check_on_wq = 0
" End Syntastic settings
" automagically enter/exit paste mode when pasting with the mouse
let &t_SI .= "\<Esc>[?2004h"
let &t_EI .= "\<Esc>[?2004l"
inoremap <special> <expr> <Esc>[200~ XTermPasteBegin()
function! XTermPasteBegin()
set pastetoggle=<Esc>[201~
set paste
return ""
endfunction
" The good stuff
colorscheme nord
syntax on
filetype indent plugin on
:set listchars=eol:$,tab:>-,trail:~,extends:>,precedes:<
set list
:set spell spelllang=en_us
VIM-PLUG
I use vim-plug for plugin management, I like it cause I don’t have to do anything and it does it’s job nicely.
# load vim-plug if it's not installed
if empty(glob('~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim'))
silent !curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs
\ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim
autocmd VimEnter * PlugInstall --sync | source $MYVIMRC
endif
" install my huge selection of plugins
call plug#begin(expand('~/.vim/plugged'))
Plug 'arcticicestudio/nord-vim'
Plug 'scrooloose/syntastic'
Plug 'airblade/vim-gitgutter'
call plug#end()
The first section will install vim-plug if it isn’t already installed, this is handy for when I’m on a fresh install or SSH’d into another host that I’ll be working on for a bit. It allows me to pull down my configuration from git and be up and running instantly.
And I install 2 plugin and a color theme, the color theme may vary sometimes, but for the most part I use something that works well with dark terminals.
gitgutter
This plugin just shows me which lines are different from the my branch in git in the sidebar. Super helpful while not requiring me to actively remember or do anything. You will see this as a theme for the plugins I use.
Plug 'airblade/vim-gitgutter'
Syntastic
This plugin is nice since again, I don’t actually have to do anything and it provides immediate value, by showing errors and warnings in the bottom panel of the editor otherwise there’s no bottom panel, perfect.
" Syntastic settings
set statusline+=%#warningmsg#
set statusline+=%{SyntasticStatuslineFlag()}
set statusline+=%*
let g:syntastic_always_populate_loc_list = 1
let g:syntastic_auto_loc_list = 1
let g:syntastic_check_on_open = 1
let g:syntastic_check_on_wq = 0
" End Syntastic settings
This section just sets the default recommended configuration for Syntastic, I’ve never seen the need to configure it any more as it’s default settings work quite well.
Syntastic does use external linters and syntax checkers, so make sure they are installed and in your path while using this or it won’t do much.
Recommended packages to install would be: shellcheck, pylint and flake8.
Copy/Pasta
About the only thing I use my mouse for is to copy / paste blocks of text around, and instead of manually having to type in set paste every time I want to paste stuff into Vim and not have the indenting crap all over the formatting of the text, again this block allows me to not have to do anything, and it will auto-toggle the indenting off / on when pasting.
" automagically enter/exit paste mode when pasting with the mouse
let &t_SI .= "\<Esc>[?2004h"
let &t_EI .= "\<Esc>[?2004l"
inoremap <special> <expr> <Esc>[200~ XTermPasteBegin()
function! XTermPasteBegin()
set pastetoggle=<Esc>[201~
set paste
return ""
endfunction
Vim default settings
The rest of the settings aren’t based on plugins or custom functions, they are just little tweaks to the default Vim options.
colorscheme nord
syntax on
filetype indent plugin on
:set listchars=eol:$,tab:>-,trail:~,extends:>,precedes:<
set list
:set spell spelllang=en_us
I set a color-scheme (imported with vim-plug), set the syntax highlighting on, enable proper indenting for my Python scripts with the indent plugin.
To manage my white space, I use the following which will show all the white space in the files I’m editing, this is handy since we have some crazy white space requirements at work and allows me to keep stuff cleaner. In the event that I want to paste from Vim to another application, I’ll have to run set list! to disable the white space formatting temporarily.
:set listchars=eol:$,tab:>-,trail:~,extends:>,precedes:<
set list
Lastly I use the spellchecker, this will highlight words that are misspelled, and you can be prompted to change them by pressing z= while your cursor is in the words.
:set spell spelllang=en_us
Simplicity
Not having to actually remember how to use anything other than the editor itself is nice, and my .vimrc kinda just slowly evolved over the years, to something I don’t ever have to really manage and it’s nice.