Is it normal for a Vim to be started when I start MacVim?

[Eric Weir]

That's my question.

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Eric Weir

eew...@bellsouth.net

"The invincible shield of caring

Is a weapon sent from the sky 

against being dead." 

- Tao Te Ching 67

[björn]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:54 PM, Eric Weir wrote:
>
> That's my question.

It is very difficult to provide an intelligent answer if you don't
explain your problem a bit more. All I can say now is that MacVim
*is* Vim so yes, it is normal for Vim to start when you start MacVim
since they are the same thing.

What do you really want to know?

Björn

[dv1...@wayne.edu]

bj�rn wrote on 11/16/12 at 16:09:40 +0100:

I'm guessing that he wants to know if it is normal for a process called
'Vim' to show up in Activity Monitor.app whenever he launches
MacVim.app. Or that he wants to know something basically equivalent to
that.

The answer is yes. In fact, it is normal (in the sense of "this is how
it does work and is how it is supposed to work") for there to be *many*
'Vim' processes to be running while only one "MacVim" appears in
Activity Monitor.app---if you hit Cmd-N in MacVim a few times, for
example.

-gmn

[Eric Weir]

On Nov 16, 2012, at 1:05 PM, dv1...@wayne.edu wrote:
>
> björn wrote on 11/16/12 at 16:09:40 +0100:

First, thanks to both of you for responding. And apologies for taking so long in responding.

Yes, gmn, that was my question. My guess, by the time I posted, was that the answer was, yes, but I wanted to double-check.

My reason for asking? I was experiencing problems with the Sessions plugin that I've experienced in the past: Getting "swap file already exists" messages when the plugin attempted to load the files in my default session. In attempting to remedy the problem I got a message at one point to the effect that my "default session could not be loaded because it is in use by another instance of Vim." That was when I went to Activity Monitor and noticed the Vim process running with the MacVim process.

When I managed to get the problem solved---don't ask me how; I believe it was by deleting the "default.vim.lock" file created by the Session plugin when a saved session is opened, but I don't recall for certain---I noticed that there was still a Vim process running along with the MacVim process. At that point I assumed it was normal, but wanted to check.

Another thing that was puzzling was that after I got the "session couldn't be opened because it is in use by another instance of Vim" message I noticed that there was still only one Vim process running in addition to MacVim, not a second as I expected assuming the first was normal. If there was another instance of Vim, why wasn't it showing up in Activity Monitor?

All just matters of curiosity now. I haven't hadn't any "swap file already exists" messages since fixing the problem right before I posted my question here.

Thanks again,
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Eric Weir
Decatur, GA
eew...@bellsouth.net

"What does it mean...that the world is so beautiful?"

- Mary Oliver