MultiVim

25 views
Skip to first unread message

Marcel Boon

unread,
Jun 30, 2008, 6:46:31 AM6/30/08
to vim...@googlegroups.com
'llo all,

Vim is great and has a lot of possiblities and great configuration possibilities. Cream is an example of what you can do with configuration. I've tried that but it's not my cup of tea. Newbie friendly but in expertmode it just not behaves like I expect.
So the way is to start with bare Vim and configure it the way I want. Bare Vim is not newbie friendly. It's weird to work with modes and if you don't know how to get in insert mode you even can't get a single character on the screen. There must be a better way.

My perfect setup is somewhere between bare vim and a cloaked version like cream. I want to be able to do everything I want using the keystrokes that are familiar for me without having to cripple vim. I want to make the configuration that I would have love to find the first time I learned of vim.

And what's that? Since I'm used to Multiedit, I would like  to have found  a configuration or plugin of vim that explains to do in vim everything I used to do in Multiedit but let me do it the vim way.
Currently I'm creating a list of every command you could map in Multiedit to a key, I do only the commands that are availble with the default setup. A lot of them have a simple vim equivalent. Al the default keys in Multiedit keys will be mapped to the vim commands. In the configuration file will be all default available commands, not only the mapped ones.
So the new user can easily map a defalut available function by uncommenting the right line and insert the keystroke to map this command to.
Also the menu of gvim would be changed to the default MultiEdit menu. Just to make it convinient for Multiedit users.
Adjusting settings should open the well commented configuration file at the right position.
And for me it's a way to learn some ins and outs of vim. Find out how it works and document it.

Yeah .. blah blah, but why are you telling this to us?

Wel, this works for a lot of of commands, but not for.. let's say the search window. In MultiEdit there is a window that pops up with several checkboxes as searchoptions. Now I want to show instructions that shows how to build the roght searchcommand. I will only cover the normal Multiedit options and point for more options to the real help file. This message could be shown with echo, but when pressing enter the help dissapears. I want those instructions shown while the user can type his search command and let it dissapear when he executes his search command. How can I do that?
Is it possible to show an overlay, something like the dropdownlist from omnicompletion? I don't like the way omnicompletion opens a new window for the descriptions of the function btw. It stays open when finished the completion. What would be the nicest way to do this?

Oh.. I just started this, but when it's all finsihed I probably easily can add configurations for other editors. I think it would be something like
Slick Ultra Multi Vim Plus, for easy switching to vim. Delivered with several congurations. ;)

Regards,
Marcel


 

Christian Heidecker

unread,
Jun 30, 2008, 7:45:04 AM6/30/08
to vim...@googlegroups.com
Hi!

2008/6/30 Marcel Boon <marcelsp...@gmail.com>:


> Oh.. I just started this, but when it's all finsihed I probably easily can
> add configurations for other editors. I think it would be something like
> Slick Ultra Multi Vim Plus, for easy switching to vim. Delivered with
> several congurations. ;)

I know the problem, that is sometimes hard for newbies to find
into Vim. However, I think that there is a better solution than
yours: If you want an editor to behave like MultiEdit, it will
be wise to use MultiEdit. If you want an editor to behave like
Notepad, it will be wiser to use Notepad. In my humble opinion,
it is not the best way to make Vim a completely different
editor than it is meant to be.

Instead you can try mswin.vim (if you are using Windows), which
is much easier to start with. This isn't doing things completely
in the Vim way, but it is very near to it and maybe you won't
stop using Vim so quickly, if there is more you are familiar
with. However, finally one should arrive at using Vim the Vim
way which is the most efficient way to use Vim. But we should
not forget, that due to the flexibility of Vim, there are many
ways using Vim the Vim way.

This is at least the way I found into Vim. Others may have found
into Vim in a completely different way. Once I really disliked
(or better: hated) Vi and thus this way (and realizing Vim's
mighty regular expressions) was necessary for me to become a big
fan of this greatest of all possible editors in the multiverse.

carpe diem!
Christian

Marcel Boon

unread,
Jun 30, 2008, 9:04:56 AM6/30/08
to vim...@googlegroups.com
> However, I think that there is a better solution than
> yours: If you want an editor to behave like MultiEdit, it will
> be wise to use MultiEdit.

No. I don't want it to behave like MultiEdit, I like it to be easy for
MultiEdit users. A big difference.
So keymappings are allowed. Disabling modes, like cream does, not. I'm
used to MultiEdit, but there is no Linux version, although they
promised it for years. So I searched for an other editor, Vim seems my
best option. And I know it's a completely other editor, but I think it
can be more newbiefriendly than it is without doing a completely
facelift like Cream, so without really changing the way it works.
I want to make a configuration that functions as a guide for a
MultiEdit user saying."Hey you,I recognise the keystroke, you
Multiedituser, but ... read on... actually this is the way to do it in vim."
For me a learning process and the result is a configuration that is
very friendly towards frustrated Multiedit users.

This was all an introduction to my question: what is the best way to
show the message?
Can it be done in a neat way?

Benjamin Fritz

unread,
Jun 30, 2008, 12:12:48 PM6/30/08
to vim...@googlegroups.com
On 6/30/08, Marcel Boon <marcelsp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't like the way omnicompletion opens a new window for
> the descriptions of the function btw. It stays open when finished the
> completion. What would be the nicest way to do this?
>

You can remove "preview" from 'completeopt' so it never pops up the
window. If you want it to pop up, but go away after you finish
entering text, you could probably do something like:

autocmd InsertLeave * pclose

That's what I plan to do, but I haven't played with this yet, because
for some reason I can't get the preview window to pop up at all!

ThoML

unread,
Jul 1, 2008, 9:46:10 AM7/1/08
to vim_use
Hi,

> Wel, this works for a lot of of commands, but not for.. let's say the search
> window. In MultiEdit there is a window that pops up with several checkboxes
> as searchoptions. Now I want to show instructions that shows how to build
> the roght searchcommand. I will only cover the normal Multiedit options and
> point for more options to the real help file. This message could be shown
> with echo, but when pressing enter the help dissapears.

I found the idea quite interesting so I ... well, I shamelessly copied
it. Maybe it's of some help for you:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2279

This solution to the problem you describe uses the normal help tags by
default. You can use your own tag files though by setting
g:cmdlinehelpTags. It should thus be quite easy to display specific
help files.

Marcel Boon

unread,
Jul 6, 2008, 5:08:00 PM7/6/08
to vim...@googlegroups.com
> I found the idea quite interesting so I ... well, I shamelessly copied
> it. Maybe it's of some help for you:
> http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2279
>
> This solution to the problem you describe uses the normal help tags by
> default. You can use your own tag files though by setting
> g:cmdlinehelpTags. It should thus be quite easy to display specific
> help files.

This surely is nice. It was more or less what I had in mind woth the
exception that it would be great that if the help is shown it's not in
a new window but shown as layover, like the dropdown omnicomplete. So
it's drawn over the current screen.
But I don't think that is possible.

Your solution is very nice and I will surely use it. Thanks.

Marcel

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages