Using gvim 7.3 with msysgit

[Robert Ellenberg]

Hi,

    I'm a big fan of msysgit and how easy it is to use on windows, especially having vim in a shell.  Unfortunately, the stripped-down version of vim that's included lacks a lot of syntax files and plugins. One way around this limitation is to copy by hand all of the .vim files from a separate installation of gvim, but this is messy and probably a bad idea.  Another way that seems promising is to symlink the vim73 folder directly into the share/vim folder.  In other words, starting from the appropriate Program files folder:

1. Delete or rename Git\share\vim\vim72
2. Create a folder shortcut from Vim\vim73 in the Git\share\vim folder (I used mklink /D, but there are probably gui methods as well).

With a few settings in my own .vimrc, I get all of the syntax highlighting and other stuff from the full version.

My question: Would it make sense to make this an option from the installer? i.e. if you have gvim installed, the msysgit installer detects it and does this simple operation?

Thanks!

Rob

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi Robert,

On Tue, 3 Apr 2012, Robert Ellenberg wrote:

> I'm a big fan of msysgit and how easy it is to use on windows,
> especially having vim in a shell. Unfortunately, the stripped-down
> version of vim that's included lacks a lot of syntax files and
> plugins.

It's all open source. Please feel free to patch
/share/WinGit/copy-files.sh to include whatever files you deem
appropriate. Just make sure that you make the result available to this
list, either by posting the patch series or by forking on GitHub and
sending a pull request or a mail mentioning which URL so other people can
find your work.

Ciao,
Johannes

[Jeff Mohr]

Robert Ellenberg said the following on 4/3/2012 5:45 PM:

> Hi,
> I'm a big fan of msysgit and how easy it is to use on windows,
> especially having vim in a shell. Unfortunately, the stripped-down
> version of vim that's included lacks a lot of syntax files and plugins.
> One way around this limitation is to copy by hand all of the .vim files
> from a separate installation of gvim, but this is messy and probably a
> bad idea. Another way that seems promising is to symlink the vim73
> folder directly into the share/vim folder. In other words, starting
> from the appropriate Program files folder:
>

> 1. Delete or rename Git\share\vim\vim72
> 2. Create a folder shortcut from Vim\vim73 in the Git\share\vim folder

> (I used mklink /D, but there are probably gui methods as well).
>
> With a few settings in my own .vimrc, I get all of the syntax
> highlighting and other stuff from the full version.

The solution I use is:

1. Add the gvim folder to your path (if it's not already included)
2. Run: git config --global core.editor "gvim --nofork '%*'"

I came across this solution here:
http://stackoverflow.com/a/4652019/16548

Jeff