vimrc

Overview

This repository contains a helpful .vimrc configured for ease of use. It also contains some documentation (in the form of this readme) about setting up and using vim on various sytems.

Installing vim

• Windows:
  • GVim (gvim90.exe) https://www.vim.org/download.php#pc
• MacOS:
  • MacVim from http://macvim-dev.github.io/macvim/ (latest binary release)
  • Use regular vim that comes with the system (or use brew to install a newer or different version)
• Linux:
  • Use regular vim that comes with the system (or use apt to install a newer or different version)

.vimrc locations

• Windows: _vimrc (see below for how to determine the full path)
• MacOS: ~/.vimrc
• Linux: ~/.vimrc

To determine the location of _vimrc on Windows, issue the following commands within vim:

:version
:echo $HOME

Copy the .vimrc file from this repository to the property location.

Helpful command line invocations

The following command line invocations will allow you to open a new instance of vi with a particular file (vi) or open a file as a tab on an existing vim session (vt).

Windows:

doskey vi="C:\Path\To\vim90\gvim.exe" $* 
doskey vt="C:\Path\To\vim90\gvim.exe" --remote-silent-tab $* 

MacOS / Linux:

alias vi="/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim"
alias vt="/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim --remote-silent-tab"

vim commands

remove ^M characters           :%s/^M//g      To make ^M, CTRL-V then CTRL-M

write file                     :w
quit                           :q
write and quit                 :wq
quit without saving changes    :q! 

edit existing file             :edit
edit file (horiz split)        :split
edit file (vert split)         :vsplit

create empty buffer            :enew
create empty buf (horiz split) :new
create empty buf (vert split)  :vnew

split current file (vertical)  ^wv
split current file (horiz)     ^ws
switch among split windows     ^ww

mark location for yanking      mk
copy from mark to here         y'k
cut from mark to here          d'k
yank (copy) current line       yy
paste                          p
delete (cut) current line      dd
delete (cut) current word      dw
delete (cut) current character x
delete word from cursor        dw
back, delete word from cursor  bdw
enter insert mode              i
remove next character          r
enter remove mode              R
undo                           u
redo                           ^r
copy into system clipboard     "*yy
paste from system clipboard    "*p
preface for system clipboard   "*

move forward one word          w
move backward one word         b
move forward one paragraph     }
move backward one paragraph    {

center screen on cursor        zz

find                           :/foo
find next                      n
find previous                  N
global replace                 :%s/find/replace/g
unhighlight search results     :noh

open new tab                   :tabe
open current file in new tab   :tab sp
move to next tab               gt
move to prev tab               gT
move tab to position (or last) :tabm [ndx] 

go to previous location        ^o
go to next location            ^i
find tag (brings up dialog)    :tj
jump to tag for cur word       ^]

bookmark local location        ma          a is name of bookmark
bookmark global location       mA          A is name of bookmark
recall local bookmark          `a          a is name of bookmark
recall global bookmark         `A          A is name of bookmark

Tags

Installing tags

• Windows: https://github.com/universal-ctags
• MacOS: use brew to install universal-ctags
• Linux: use apt to install universal-ctags

Copy the .ctags file from this repository to your home directory. This might not be necessary.

Generate tags for a source tree

Execute the following at the root of the source tree: ctags -R -a tags .

The above command will generate tags for everything it encounters. You probably want to do something like this instead to exclude certain directories / file types: ctags --extra=+f -R --exclude=.git --exclude=node_modules --exclude='*.js' --exclude='*.d.ts'. See the .zshrc file in this repository for the latest mktags alias.

A file named tags will be created at the root of your source tree. vim will consult this file to navigate when files are opened from this source tree.

Using tags

In short, within vim, use the following:

find tag (brings up dialog)    :tj
jump to tag for cur word       ^]