Is vim just for programmers?
Anthony Campbell
being unable to get on it for several years, I seem to see a difference
in emphasis. Most people who post here appear to be programmers,
whereas previously there were other kinds of users as well. Nothing
wrong with that, of course, and I'm not trying to start a flame war. But
I'm not a programmer yet I use vim for all my writing and I'm wondering
if I'm unusual.
I write books among other things, and for that I first compose the text
in vim, which allows me to concentrate on the meaning withoug bothering
about the appearance, and then transfer it to LyX for final formatting.
I find it useful to have these two different phases in writing. What I
like about vim is the possibility to make quick transpositions of blocks
of text and other changes. I usually end up with several files
containing different versions of what I've written.
Searching the web for people's views on writing methods I found a number
who said that one should use vim for programming but emacs for other
kinds of writing. So I had a look at emacs out of curiosity but couldn't
see any real advantage for me in learning it. Am I missing something
here? Is anyone else still using vim for writing lengthy texts?
Anthony
--
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell
Marc Weber
Asking such general questions doesn't make sense in practise. (IMHO).
If you want to get a job done and if you want to know whether Vim is a
great tool to get the job done than ask how to setup Vim to assist you.
See :h design-not
Follow Bram's advice: Watch yourself. Try to find out on which things
you spend most time and try to speed up those tasks. If you don't know
how to do this get help (ig by chatting on irc).
Vim is good at this: You can speed up many tasks easily.
If it comes to more advanced things such as IDE features (code
completion etc.).. you still can make Vim use languages which can do the
task for you. Examples: Eclim (headless eclipse) or scion (Haskell on
the fly syntax checker)
Using other editors one of those things which can slow down is switchi
mouse / keyboard. Using Vim you don't have switch because you can do
everything you like using the keyboard.
One bad thing about Vim is that you can't quit if you've never done that
before even though the start screen tells you to run :q
At least I didn't understand it that time.
If it comes to writing books there is no easy answer either.
Eg Emacs has some plugins to preview LaTex formulars.
Vim will never do this.
Programmers naturally write much text. And vim assists you very well.
Many people (including me) use Vim even if it has some weakness such as
not being able to receive feedback from other applications in a
concurrent way. You need such a feature to implement debugger
integration.. (Yes I know there are many workarounds. I wrote one
myself. But Vim itself is not thread safe which says all...)
That's why I end up coding in Vim while using Eclipse for debugging..
I also write Emails using Vim.
I keep many notes in files I manage with Vim.
Use the tool which is best for a given task.
Use google and irc to find out which tool that is.
If you consider using a non distracting editor such as
http://they.misled.us/dark-room
keep in mind that it takes less than 5 configuration lines to make Vim
fit this use case as well.
Have a look at :h motion to find out why Vim might be a better choice
for writing text. Than compare this list with the features other text
editor provide. Also keep in mind that it's very easy to script Vim.
Marc Weber
Anthony Campbell
> Hi Anthony,
>
> Asking such general questions doesn't make sense in practise. (IMHO).
>
I must have phrased this badly. I was just wondering what other people's
experience was and if there were others who were using vim for general
writing and editing. More out of curiosity than anything else.
> If it comes to writing books there is no easy answer either.
> Eg Emacs has some plugins to preview LaTex formulars.
> Vim will never do this.
LyX does. One of the reasons I use it.
> If you consider using a non distracting editor such as
> http://they.misled.us/dark-room
I don't use Windows.
Regards,
Anthony
--
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell
Wi
Tim Chase
> found a number who said that one should use vim for
> programming but emacs for other kinds of writing. So I had a
> look at emacs out of curiosity but couldn't see any real
> advantage for me in learning it. Am I missing something here?
> Is anyone else still using vim for writing lengthy texts?
Me :)
Yes, there's a decently sized contingent of [La]TeX users on the
vim ML, but they mostly appear to answer questions about
Vim+[La]TeX integration plugins or use, and then they go silent.
Which is how the list works in general -- ask a question and
usually the right people pick up on it and answer; instead of
having people write unsolicited diatribes on their favorite
topics whether [La]TeX, scripting, Ex commands, or
Unicode/BOM/character-encodings stuff (though I've gotta admit
that just about everything I know regarding U/BOM/ce, I've
learned from Tony's elucidating replies that occasionally go off
on pedantic dissertations -- thanks, Tony!).
I think Vim's primary users are "people who want to edit text
more efficiently". A large subset of those lazy people (self
included) are programmers, but do include [La]TeX users, system
administrators, people who email a lot and use Vim as an external
editor...and the list goes on. I tinkered with Emacs but grew
frustrated with (1) using it over remote SSH/telnet/RS-232
connections that didn't always reliably send things like alt/meta
or arrow keys; (2) at the time, on my underpowered 486 DX/100,
Emacs was a dog; and (3) it was harder to be productive out of
the box without amassing a customized config file that I then had
to tote around and keep in sync across machines. Tim O'Reilly
had a good post[1] about this around the time I made the
full-time jump to Vim.
So now I use Vim like I used to use qedit in DOS to write all my
papers, project documentation, code, and other text-format
content. Except, well, email and text-boxes on web pages (though
there are TB/FF plugins for that)
-tim
[1]
http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html
Geir Isene
> > Searching the web for people's views on writing methods I
> > found a number who said that one should use vim for
> > programming but emacs for other kinds of writing. So I had a
> > look at emacs out of curiosity but couldn't see any real
> > advantage for me in learning it. Am I missing something here?
> > Is anyone else still using vim for writing lengthy texts?
>
> Me :)
Me too.
I use vim for almost anything - including writing in forms on the web (via
the firefox plugin ItsAllText). I write books, esseys, articles and all my
e-mail in vim (I use Mutt as the mail client). I am almost twice as
effective in handling e-mail than most people I know with the mutt/vim
combo.
->Geir Isene :)
--
Daglig leder / CEO FreeCode AS
Cell: +47 - 473 44 000
Phone: +47 - 21 53 69 00, Fax: +47 - 21 53 69 09
Addr: Nydalsveien 30A, 0484 Oslo
Web: http://www.freecode.no/
Stahlman Family
Anthony Campbell wrote:
> Having recently rather unexpectedly found myself back on this list after
> being unable to get on it for several years, I seem to see a difference
> in emphasis. Most people who post here appear to be programmers,
> whereas previously there were other kinds of users as well. Nothing
> wrong with that, of course, and I'm not trying to start a flame war. But
> I'm not a programmer yet I use vim for all my writing and I'm wondering
> if I'm unusual.
>
> I write books among other things, and for that I first compose the text
> in vim, which allows me to concentrate on the meaning withoug bothering
> about the appearance, and then transfer it to LyX for final formatting.
> I find it useful to have these two different phases in writing. What I
> like about vim is the possibility to make quick transpositions of blocks
> of text and other changes. I usually end up with several files
> containing different versions of what I've written.
>
> Searching the web for people's views on writing methods I found a number
> who said that one should use vim for programming but emacs for other
> kinds of writing. So I had a look at emacs out of curiosity but couldn't
> see any real advantage for me in learning it. Am I missing something
> here? Is anyone else still using vim for writing lengthy texts?
Anthony,
I am a programmer, but I also use Vim for non-programming tasks: for
example, I keep copious notes on a wide range of topics (professional,
personal, understanding, etc...) in a system of journal files containing
well over 50,000 lines. I wrote a Vim filetype plugin that facilitates
creating journal entries with the sort of header I like (subject, date,
tags, etc...), and a Vim syntax plugin that knows how to highlight the
entries sensibly. I also wrote a Perl GUI that provides advanced search
capabilities, and can send search results to a Vim instance in a way
that makes it easy for me to cycle through the results.
Although the aforementioned Vim syntax plugin knows how to do basic
journal entry highlighting, I sometimes find myself wanting a more
flexible syntax highlighting mechanism: e.g., something analogous to the
"rich text" capability supported by word processors. For this sort of
highlighting, I use the Txtfmt plugin:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2208
Screenshots: http://www.txtfmt.webs.com
One of the nice features of Vim's plugin system is that it doesn't force
me to choose between my journal syntax (jnl) and the Txtfmt syntax
(txtfmt): I can use both in the same file, simply by setting 'filetype'
equal to "jnl.txtfmt". The result is that things like journal entry
headers (as well the simple markup understood by the jnl syntax) are
highlighted automatically, but extra highlighting (e.g,. fg/bg colors,
bold, underline, italic, etc...) can be added as desired with Txtfmt.
This synergy is certainly not limited to Txtfmt and Jnl. Others have
written plugins for working with text, which can be integrated with
Txtfmt in a similar way:
Notes (lightweight note taker by Hari Krishna Dara)
ywchaos (journal taking and diary making by Yue Wu)
txt (plain text browser by Yongping Guo)
TVO (The Vim Outliner by Ned Konz)
etc...
If I had known about some of the above (or in some cases, if they had
existed) when I wrote the Jnl plugin, I might have used one of them
instead of writing my own. The point here is not that my solution is
right for everyone, but that Vim can be made to do just about whatever
you like. Figure out what your requirements are, and craft a tailored
solution. The solution could rely upon tools you write yourself, tools
written by other Vim users, or some combination of the two.
One other example of Vim's usefulness for text applications occurs to
me... Several years ago, I was writing the script for a sort of radio
drama I was producing with my children. I created a syntax file that
provided highlighting for various things: scene numbering, scene
descriptions, character names, sound effect cues, etc... I also created
a filetype plugin that facilitated, among other things, making the
recordings of the voice parts by bringing up a recorder application to
record the speaking part under the cursor and ensuring that the
resulting .wav file was saved to a file whose name could be derived from
scene, speaker, and position within the scene. This plugin saved me a
great deal of time and frustration during recording sessions, allowing
me to focus entirely on the (easily distracted) children playing the
parts rather than on the mundane and repetitive logistics of recording.
Hope this helps...
Brett Stahlman
>
>
> Anthony
>
Chris Jones
> Having recently rather unexpectedly found myself back on this list
> after being unable to get on it for several years,
There have been reports on the list of individuals who had unsbscribed
from v...@vim.org years ago and all of a sudden started receiving mail
again from the new vim...@googlegoups.com. I'd say this was some time
over the last few months, so you could search the archives and see if
anything conclusive came of it.
> I seem to see a difference in emphasis. Most people who post here
> appear to be programmers, whereas previously there were other kinds of
> users as well. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and I'm not trying
> to start a flame war. But I'm not a programmer yet I use vim for all
> my writing and I'm wondering if I'm unusual.
Insofar as you are using GNU/linux, you are already 'unusual'. Being a
writer rather than a programmer and resorting to Vim as your tool of
choice, probably makes you even more so by a few orders of magnitude.
But then, and this list is an example thereof, even programmers do
indulge in other activities besides programming.
And one could even argue that the minute you start using a computer you
become a programmer anyway.
> I write books among other things, and for that I first compose the
> text in vim, which allows me to concentrate on the meaning without
> bothering about the appearance, and then transfer it to LyX for final
> formatting. I find it useful to have these two different phases in
> writing. What I like about vim is the possibility to make quick
> transpositions of blocks of text and other changes. I usually end up
> with several files containing different versions of what I've written.
You could take at look a the 'latex-suite' plugin. If you are on debian,
do the following for a quick evaluation:
# vim-addons -w install latex-suite # as root / system-wide install
$ vim
:h latex-suite-quickstart.txt
:h latex-suite
Or you could investigate whether LyX can be customized to emulate the
behavior of Vim's interface in terms of keyboard actions.
> Searching the web for people's views on writing methods I found a
> number who said that one should use vim for programming but Emacs for
> other kinds of writing. So I had a look at Emacs out of curiosity but
> couldn't see any real advantage for me in learning it. Am I missing
> something here?
It takes time to become comfortable enough with either Vim or Emacs to
be able to push them out of the way and focus on the writing.
I enjoy using Vim for writing English text, because I neither have to
take my eyes off the display nor have to take my fingers off the
keyboard's home row: aside from 'Ctrl-[' to switch between insert/normal
mode, which I favor over reaching for my laptop's tiny out-of-reach
escape key, I find that pretty much all the keyboard 'meta-actions' that
I need to frequently perform besides the ones that let me enter text,
save energy (usually one key-press or two after escaping out of insert
mode rather than hard-to-sync modifier+key combos), and also do not
require the hand flexibility and of eye quickness of a 4-year old (none
of that looking down at the keyboard to reach for arrow keys, <PgUp>,
<PdDown>, <Home>, <End>, etc.
In other words, unless you have reached the nirvana of perfect typing
accuracy, and you never need to amend your output, Vim is to my mind
best of breed in terms of efficient general-purpose editing.
I am not God's scribe after all.
Note, that I forced myself to learn to type a few years ago and have
become proficient enough to come close to my initial goal, which was to
be able to enter text at the keyboard as naturally and effortlessly as
I was able to write with a pen. And yes, it turned out that integrating
the minimal set of Vim's most frequently used commands to my muscle
memory was an important part of the equation. It may skew my vision of
the issue but unfortunately, apart from the frustration, I cannot
remember anything from the days when I could not type.
> Is anyone else still using vim for writing lengthy texts?
I can't say I totally agree with Marc who feels such general questions
do not make sense, because maybe the implicit question here was whether
here in this forum lurk individuals with expertise using Vim to write
lengthy texts, and if so what features does Vim provide that makes life
easier for them. Since I cannot peek over their hypothetical shoulders,
I would be curious as well. The list is called vim_use, for one thing,
and for another, this is the type of question where RTFM does not
provide the answer.
CJ
Chris Jones
[..]
> I use vim for almost anything - including writing in forms on the web
> (via the firefox plugin ItsAllText). I write books, esseys, articles
> and all my e-mail in vim (I use Mutt as the mail client). I am almost
> twice as effective in handling e-mail than most people I know with the
> mutt/vim combo.
Aha..! I'm not one of the people you know, but it wouldn't surprise me
if you were almost twice effective as I am.
Any tips forthcoming - or a nice 3-page tutorial if you could spare the
time.
I am not kidding, actually.. this is the kind of stuff you can't get
for love or money.
In days of yore, in every trade, the apprentice would benefit by the
enlightening guidance of the masters - plenty kicks in the pants, I
would imagine, but now with computer skills, it's everyone for himself
wasting their time reinventing and despite all my efforts, my wheels are
all wonky.
:-(
CJ
Christoph Buck
>> Searching the web for people's views on writing methods I
>> found a number who said that one should use vim for
>> programming but emacs for other kinds of writing. So I had a
>> look at emacs out of curiosity but couldn't see any real
>> advantage for me in learning it. Am I missing something here?
>> Is anyone else still using vim for writing lengthy texts?
>
> Me :)
>
Me too ;)
Currently i write my masterthesis with vim + latex.
I don`t use any plugin just pure vim. With a small Makefile i am able to
build the document out of vim. Git over svn is used for a
backup/revision control.
I first tried kile, but i didn`t like the spellchecking. Than i took a
closer look to emacs.
But i'm not getting into this monster. It starts with the config-file.
The lisp-language is killing me.
And nearly every key-kombination don`t work on the first try because i
release the meta-key to
early or to late. So i stuck with vim. I'm not a power user but nearly
every day i learn a knew nice small
feature to do my work faster.
Greetings ,
Christoph
Jan-Herbert Damm
Chris Jones wrote on 01.01.10:
> In days of yore, in every trade, the apprentice would benefit by the
> enlightening guidance of the masters - plenty kicks in the pants, I would
> imagine, but now with computer skills, it's everyone for himself wasting
> their time reinventing and despite all my efforts, my wheels are all wonky.
Thanks Chris, for phrasing this so heartily to the point. That's exactly how i
feel.
jan
NickC
much so that I get frustrated when I press, say, dd in an app and find it
didn't delete the line. Stupid brain-dead app, I think to myself, when
it's my fault of course.
I use vimperator plugin for Opera browser, which gives me vim-like
shortcuts when browsing (there's one for Firefox too). So, it's not just
for programmers.
--
NickC
Tim Chase
> For me, vim has taken over, it's pervasive because it's so useful. So
> much so that I get frustrated when I press, say, dd in an app and find it
> didn't delete the line. Stupid brain-dead app, I think to myself, when
> it's my fault of course.
For me, I find myself muttering at other apps most when I reach
for a vim text-object. "What do you mean I have to hold down the
<up> arrow until I get to the blank line, then hold down shift
and the <down> arrow to select to the end of the paragraph?! Why
can't I just operate on the 'inner paragraph' text object without
all this hooey?!"
For most of my other annoyances, I just cut & paste into vim, use
a *real* editor, then copy/paste it back into the original app.
-tim
Tim Chase
> Any tips forthcoming - or a nice 3-page tutorial if you could
> spare the time.
>
> I am not kidding, actually.. this is the kind of stuff you
> can't get for love or money.
>
> In days of yore, in every trade, the apprentice would benefit
> by the enlightening guidance of the masters
While the Vim Wiki is available, I find the most useful thing is
to hang out on this mailing list -- it's like having a dozen
masters answering the questions for apprentices. You can just
let the stream of answers flow by, and as your skills develop,
try to formulate your own solution to others' problems. As on
several recent threads, you'll see several radically different
solutions to the same problem. I tend to abuse Ex commands,
while others often prefer scripting solutions. Seeing the range
of solutions from others helps broaden your perspective on how to
tackle similar problems when you encounter them in the wild.
-tim
Reid Thompson
> Any tips forthcoming - or a nice 3-page tutorial if you could spare the
> time.
>
> I am not kidding, actually.. this is the kind of stuff you can't get
> for love or money.
>
> In days of yore, in every trade, the apprentice would benefit by the
> enlightening guidance of the masters - plenty kicks in the pants, I
> would imagine, but now with computer skills, it's everyone for himself
> wasting their time reinventing and despite all my efforts, my wheels are
> all wonky.
>
> :-(
>
> CJ
>
I believe vim is the default editor for mutt. Here's the best place to get started.
At the bottom of the page are a couple of Newbie guides.
http://www.mutt.org/
Anthony Campbell
use vim much as I do. Some useful suggestions have come up. I already
use (g)vim as my default editor for mutt but I'll look into LatexSuite and
txtfmt.
A principal grouse of people who prefer other editors is that vim is
modal. This doesn't actually bother me, perhaps because before I was
using linux I was on DOS (didn't like Windows even then), and there I
used a word processor called Protext, which was modal. Vim felt quite
familiar to me in that respect when I came to it after a brief
flirtation with emacs.
Shawn H Corey
> For me, vim has taken over, it's pervasive because it's so useful. So
> much so that I get frustrated when I press, say, dd in an app and find it
> didn't delete the line. Stupid brain-dead app, I think to myself, when
> it's my fault of course.
I know the feeling. When I used to work on Windows and the only editor
available was edit (ugh!) It wasn't long before all the text files
start with :q
--
Just my 0.00000002 million dollars worth,
Shawn
Programming is as much about organization and communication
as it is about coding.
I like Perl; it's the only language where you can bless your
thingy.
Dennis German
An earlier post mentioned having files ending up with
:q in them.
When I'm done editing, I always use :x and
only use :q when I didn't make any changes
( of course :q! when I didn't mean to make any changes).
Is this just a matter of personal preference and
does everyone else use :w:q or something else??
Dennis German
execute the :x
( or a :q which would fail with warning if changes were made),
avoiding the syndrome known as
:x [ENTER]*@#$! [DEL][DEL][DEL][ESC]:x[ENTER]
or
the many HTML files with the odd :x embedded
PS The *@#$! is usually spoken)
Thomas Adam
> Happy New Year to all. :w
>
> An earlier post mentioned having files ending up with
> :q in them.
>
> When I'm done editing, I always use :x and
I use: ZZ
-- Thomas Adam
--
"It was the cruelest game I've ever played and it's played inside my head."
-- "Hush The Warmth", Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.
Tim Chase
There was a thread on the preferences of various people regarding
the merits of quitting methods[1]. I prefer to build my intent
incrementally while others prefer fast typing such as ZZ (2.5
keys) or :x<cr> (3.5 or 4 keys depending on how you count <shift>)
-tim
[1] my post on the topic
http://markmail.org/message/ohbuz4lk4zj4wt52
Tim Chase
> Has anyone written a script to intercept :x being input as text and
> execute the :x
> ( or a :q which would fail with warning if changes were made),
> avoiding the syndrome known as
>
> :x [ENTER]*@#$! [DEL][DEL][DEL][ESC]:x[ENTER]
I've never had the problem because I tend to live in normal mode,
leaving insert mode as soon as I've entered my text. However, it
wouldn't be too hard to do something like
:inoremap :x<cr> <esc>:x<cr>
-tim
Shawn H Corey
I use :q because it gives me more control. When I program, it's not
unusual for me to have several instances of gvim running, each with two
or three files opened. This is to coordinate the activities that are
distributed among them. But when things finally work, any pending
changes are not part of the test. :q will complain if there are any
unwritten changes. I then do u^R to move the cursor to the last change
and decide if I want to keep it.
Chris Jones
> Dennis German wrote:
> > Happy New Year to all. :w
> >
> > An earlier post mentioned having files ending up with
> > :q in them.
> >
> > When I'm done editing, I always use :x and
> > only use :q when I didn't make any changes
> > ( of course :q! when I didn't mean to make any changes).
> > Is this just a matter of personal preference and
> > does everyone else use :w:q or something else??
> >
>
> I use :q because it gives me more control. When I program, it's not
> unusual for me to have several instances of gvim running, each with two
> or three files opened. This is to coordinate the activities that are
> distributed among them. But when things finally work, any pending
> changes are not part of the test. :q will complain if there are any
> unwritten changes. I then do u^R to move the cursor to the last change
> and decide if I want to keep it.
I try to stick to just one vim instance and basically never quit..
What I do is that I periodically take a look at my buffer list and issue
a bunch of :bw commands for those buffers I know I won't need in the
foreseeable future.
CJ
Shawn H Corey
> I try to stick to just one vim instance and basically never quit..
>
> What I do is that I periodically take a look at my buffer list and issue
> a bunch of :bw commands for those buffers I know I won't need in the
> foreseeable future.
Gvim allows the window to be split vertically. This allows me to view
different files (or two places in the same file) at the same time. It's
useful in coordinating programs. For example, you could have the
variables in one side (which are frequency at the top of the file) and
the subroutines in another. For languages like C, there is often two
files, file_n.h and file_n.c that have to agree.
Ben Fritz
On Jan 2, 4:39 am, Anthony Campbell <a...@acampbell.org.uk> wrote:
> A principal grouse of people who prefer other editors is that vim is
> modal. This doesn't actually bother me,
I like Vim in part *because* it is modal. I have trouble in non-modal
editors learning all the keyboard shortcuts partially because it is
usually simpler just to reach for the mouse. And, I find that having
specific "modes" that you edit in more closely mirrors how I think
about my tasks...I need to move some text here, delete that text,
change the text of a function, etc. which can all be viewed as
separate commands, and it makes sense to have one mode from which you
can accomplish all of them, and then return to. The ability to use the
entire keyboard for quick access to common commands is genius and
would be difficult to accomplish without a separate command/normal
mode. I remember reading someone likening Vim's normal mode to a video-
game controller with a few dozen buttons. The keys are all set up for
rapid access to common tasks, and entering text, etc. requires that
you enter a different mode.
Chris Jones
> Chris Jones wrote:
> > I try to stick to just one vim instance and basically never quit..
> >
> > What I do is that I periodically take a look at my buffer list and
> > issue a bunch of :bw commands for those buffers I know I won't need
> > in the foreseeable future.
> Gvim allows the window to be split vertically. This allows me to view
> different files (or two places in the same file) at the same time.
> It's useful in coordinating programs. For example, you could have the
> variables in one side (which are frequency at the top of the file) and
> the subroutines in another. For languages like C, there is often two
> files, file_n.h and file_n.c that have to agree.
Sure, but I often have to access 5-6 (or more) related files, certainly
more than what I could display concurrently on my display. And that's
where the :buffers/:ls commands really come in handy, especially
associated with Ctrl-O.
The only problem, is that after a while the buffer list in a long
running instance of vim may become so large as to be unmanageable.
As a result, when I notice that there are more than, what.. maybe twenty
five or thirty buffers in my list, I take a break from what I'm doing
and purge whatever I'm not likely to need any time soom via the :bd or
:bw commands.
I have experimented with the Buffer Explorer plugin, that makes things a
bit more user-friendly, but I'm not sure yet whether I want to become
dependent on yet another plugin.
CJ
Ben Fritz
On Jan 3, 4:09 pm, Chris Jones <cjns1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The only problem, is that after a while the buffer list in a long
> running instance of vim may become so large as to be unmanageable.
>
This is one reason that I tend to organize my work into tab pages
(often each having multiple split windows). I rarely if ever pay
attention to the buffer list.
Yes, I know tabs aren't buffers, and I'm not trying to force them to
act as such. They're just a convenient way to organize my work.
Chris Jones
> On Jan 3, 4:09�pm, Chris Jones <cjns1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The only problem, is that after a while the buffer list in a long
> > running instance of vim may become so large as to be unmanageable.
> This is one reason that I tend to organize my work into tab pages
> (often each having multiple split windows). I rarely if ever pay
> attention to the buffer list.
Hmm.. one scenario is that I have one tab open for project number one
and I am going back and forth between some 6-8 files/buffers, which is a
bit more than I could make visible on my display at the same time.
I guess I could spread them out over several tabs, but I tend to prefer
sticking to just one tab for each project and bringing back recently
visited buffers that via a :ls followed by a :bnn - and issue a Ctrl-O
when I'm done with it and want to bring back the prior content of the
window.
> Yes, I know tabs aren't buffers, and I'm not trying to force them to
> act as such. They're just a convenient way to organize my work.
I guess an working solution is always going to be in the form of a
tradeoff that privileges what one particular user feels is important
over what matters less to him. I use both tabs and the buffer list, but
in essence, I find tabs rather less flexible that buffers because since
tabs have to take into account the physical constraints of my display's
size, I have to be careful or else quickly find myself with just too
many of them open for comfort - since the tabline does not scroll, ten
to twelve tabs is just about the maximum that I can fit on my 232
columns display. Also, something about my working habits causes lots of
[No Name] empty buffers to be created, which I have to look into and
correct - quite annoying really, because I can't think of a better way
to figure out what's happening than doing my stuff in slow motion.
Thank you for your comments,
CJ
Tony Mechelynck
> Having recently rather unexpectedly found myself back on this list after
> in emphasis. Most people who post here appear to be programmers,
> whereas previously there were other kinds of users as well. Nothing
> I'm not a programmer yet I use vim for all my writing and I'm wondering
> if I'm unusual.
>
> about the appearance, and then transfer it to LyX for final formatting.
> I find it useful to have these two different phases in writing. What I
> like about vim is the possibility to make quick transpositions of blocks
> of text and other changes. I usually end up with several files
> containing different versions of what I've written.
>
> who said that one should use vim for programming but emacs for other
> kinds of writing. So I had a look at emacs out of curiosity but couldn't
> see any real advantage for me in learning it. Am I missing something
> here? Is anyone else still using vim for writing lengthy texts?
>
>
>
As was amply demonstrated by the replies already given to this post, Vim
is not limited to programmers, or even to programming tasks. I believe
that Vim can be used for any text-editing task, but maybe not by
everyone: I believe that an essential quality to become a proficient Vim
user is willingness to learn, and to continue learning as time goes on.
Vim has excellent help, second to none IMHO, but the sheer volume of
that help may scare some people away. Obviously, that help is not meant
to be read all at one sitting, any more than the Encyclopaedia
Britannica is. With Vim, I think that the most important thing to learn
(after having run the Vim tutor, or as part of it) is how to find one's
way around in the help -- "learning how to learn", so to speak. The
second-most important is to learn about these mutual-help groups here,
where (to elaborate on Chris Jones's metaphor) freshly entered
apprentices, passed fellows of the craft, and long-time masters can all
help one another get better at the art -- and in many (but not all)
cases the solution to a particular question will be found by programming
Vim in a certain way, so that "programmers" may be disproportionately
"noticeable" among the people who answer the questions -- after all,
writing a vimrc or an after-plugin can be seen as a "programming" task,
in a language which is neither Algol nor C but is more or less related
to both, and is also quite "obvious" to understand for someone who knows
how to use Vim. But the fact that "programmers" are more visible doesn't
mean that they are an overwhelming majority; it means even less that
programming tasks are majoritarily what Vim is used for. Myself, I'm a
retired programmer (my first job as a college dropout was on a 131k
[today one would say 128 Ki] 6-bit-character, 667 kHz mainframe) and a
retired teacher (I'm not wicked enough for that wonderful profession);
nowadays I do some web authoring, not as a job but on my own site
http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/ (all done with Vim, including
some quite lengthy texts) but I do practically no programming and no
teaching, except maybe when I come here and try to teach people how to
program Vim. Even this last phrase is too strong; rather, let's say that
here I exchange with my Vim brethren various tips and tricks about how
to put to best use the wonderful set of tools which Vim has to offer --
and, let me repeat, for any text editing task whatsoever.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest
in students.
-- John Ciardi
Tony Mechelynck
I use :x (save and close window), :q (close window, no need to save),
:xa (save all and quit Vim), :qa (quit Vim, nothing to save), :q! (don't
save, close window; usually a [NoName] window), F3 (mapped to :wa|wv for
"save everything, leave Vim open"), etc., and yet I don't need to be as
picky between :x and :q because I have 'autowriteall' set (which is a
great help when I forget the |up at the end of an :argdo sequence).
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Flon's Law:
There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is
the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
Tony Mechelynck
Yeah, and then someday Dennis will find himself typing something about
Vim, having forgotten that he's put such a useful abbreviation in his
vimrc, and when he turns to talk about exiting... suddenly his Vim (or
the current window at least) will go away :-P
Best regards,
Tony.
--
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
popular.
-- Oscar Wilde
Dotan Cohen
I am not a programmer, but I use VIM. I use it mainly because there is
no word processor that supports VIM keybindings, as I hate the rodent.
I use the Vimperator Firefox extension as well, which is in fact how I
discovered VIM.
--
Dotan Cohen
http://bido.com
http://what-is-what.com
Please CC me if you want to be sure that I read your message. I do not
read all list mail.
Olivier Guéry
« dense » text is sometime hard on vim, and I switch to pyroom (a
darkroom-like for linux).
The thing who helped me is the « linespace » option, which permit to
add space beetween lines and made a huge text more readable.
Other « problem », if you don’t use LaTex, and don’t want to break
lines, you can’t have realy long lines in word-wrap mode. If the line
take mor than a screen hight, the text become not readable. You must
cut the line / paragraph.
Last, I realy miss a proportionnal font. Whatever one say, a clean
proportionnal font, with ligatures, is great for writing. If gvim
could use pango or wathever I’ll be realy happy ! (I saw that it’s
possible on emacs-gui, but I realy prefer the ergonomi in vim).
Nothing’s never perfect !
Tony Mechelynck
> I�m not a programmer, and I use vim. But I must admit that writing
> � dense � text is sometime hard on vim, and I switch to pyroom (a
> darkroom-like for linux).
>
> The thing who helped me is the � linespace � option, which permit to
> add space beetween lines and made a huge text more readable.
> lines, you can�t have realy long lines in word-wrap mode. If the line
> take mor than a screen hight, the text become not readable. You must
> cut the line / paragraph.
>
> Last, I realy miss a proportionnal font. Whatever one say, a clean
> proportionnal font, with ligatures, is great for writing. If gvim
> possible on emacs-gui, but I realy prefer the ergonomi in vim).
>
Actually, on X11 systems, gvim with GTK2 GUI does use Pango, but it
still uses a fixed-size character cell. GTK2 gvim will allow you to set
any installed font as 'guifont', but proportional fonts look ugly then,
because in the fixed-size cell, thin characters such as l look lonely
and fat one such as m look cramped or even clipped.
Here's my ":version" diplay, showing that Pango is included:
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.2 (2008 Aug 9, compiled Mar 2 2010 19:50:13)
Included patches: 1-385
Extra patches: Extra float functions (Bill McCarthy)
Compiled by antoine.m...@skynet.be
Huge version with GTK2-GNOME GUI. Features included (+) or not (-):
+arabic +autocmd +balloon_eval +browse ++builtin_terms +byte_offset
+cindent +clientserver +clipboard +cmdline_compl +cmdline_hist
+cmdline_info +comments +cryptv +cscope +cursorshape +dialog_con_gui
+diff +digraphs +dnd -ebcdic +emacs_tags +eval +ex_extra +extra_search
+farsi +file_in_path +find_in_path +float +folding -footer +fork()
+gettext -hangul_input +iconv +insert_expand +jumplist +keymap +langmap
+libcall +linebreak +lispindent +listcmds +localmap +menu +mksession
+modify_fname +mouse +mouseshape +mouse_dec +mouse_gpm -mouse_jsbterm
+mouse_netterm -mouse_sysmouse +mouse_xterm +multi_byte +multi_lang
-mzscheme +netbeans_intg -osfiletype +path_extra +perl +postscript
+printer +profile +python +quickfix +reltime +rightleft +ruby
+scrollbind +signs +smartindent -sniff +startuptime +statusline
-sun_workshop
+syntax +tag_binary -tag_old_static -tag_any_white +tcl +terminfo
+termresponse +textobjects +title +toolbar +user_commands +vertsplit
+virtualedit +visual +visualextra +viminfo +vreplace +wildignore
+wildmenu +windows +writebackup +X11 -xfontset +xim +xsmp_interact
+xterm_clipboard +xterm_save
system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
system gvimrc file: "$VIM/gvimrc"
user gvimrc file: "$HOME/.gvimrc"
system menu file: "$VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim"
fall-back for $VIM: "/usr/local/share/vim"
Compilation: gcc -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -DFEAT_GUI_GTK
-I/usr/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/atk-1.0
-I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0
-I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/pixman-1
-I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/libpng12 -DORBIT2=1 -pthread
-I/usr/include/libgnomeui-2.0 -I/usr/include/libart-2.0
-I/usr/include/gconf/2 -I/usr/include/gnome-keyring-1
-I/usr/include/libgnome-2.0 -I/usr/include/libbonoboui-2.0
-I/usr/include/libgnomecanvas-2.0 -I/usr/include/gtk-2.0
-I/usr/include/gnome-vfs-2.0 -I/usr/lib/gnome-vfs-2.0/include
-I/usr/include/orbit-2.0 -I/usr/include/dbus-1.0
-I/usr/lib/dbus-1.0/include -I/usr/include/glib-2.0
-I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/libbonobo-2.0
-I/usr/include/bonobo-activation-2.0 -I/usr/include/libxml2
-I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/gail-1.0
-I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/atk-1.0
-I/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pixman-1
-I/usr/include/libpng12 -O2 -fno-strength-reduce -Wall
-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1 -D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV
-DDEBUGGING -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
-I/usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE
-I/usr/include/python2.6 -pthread -I/usr/include
-D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE=1 -I/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i586-linux -DRUBY_VERSION=18
Linking: gcc -L. -rdynamic -Wl,-export-dynamic -Wl,-E
-Wl,-rpath,/usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE
-L/usr/local/lib -o vim -lgtk-x11-2.0 -lgdk-x11-2.0 -latk-1.0
-lgio-2.0 -lpangoft2-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lcairo
-lpango-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0
-lglib-2.0 -lgnomeui-2 -lbonoboui-2 -lgnomevfs-2 -lgnomecanvas-2
-lgnome-2 -lpopt -lbonobo-2 -lbonobo-activation -lORBit-2 -lart_lgpl_2
-lgtk-x11-2.0 -lgdk-x11-2.0 -latk-1.0 -lgio-2.0 -lpangoft2-1.0
-lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lcairo -lpango-1.0 -lfreetype
-lfontconfig -lgconf-2 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lgmodule-2.0 -lgobject-2.0
-lglib-2.0 -lXt -lncurses -lacl -lgpm -Wl,-E
-Wl,-rpath,/usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE
-L/usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE -lperl -lutil -lc
-L/usr/lib/python2.6/config -lpython2.6 -lutil -Xlinker -export-dynamic
-L/usr/lib -ltcl8.5 -lieee -Wl,-R -Wl,/usr/lib -L/usr/lib -lruby -lm
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing:
August. The lines are the shortest, though.
-- Steve Rubenstein
Olivier Guéry
« dense » text is sometime hard on vim, and I switch to pyroom (a
darkroom-like for linux).
The thing who helped me is the « linespace » option, which permit to
add space beetween lines and made a huge text more readable.
Other « problem », if you don’t use LaTex, and don’t want to break
lines, you can’t have realy long lines in word-wrap mode. If the line
take mor than a screen hight, the text become not readable. You must
cut the line / paragraph.
Last, I realy miss a proportionnal font. Whatever one say, a clean
proportionnal font, with ligatures, is great for writing. If gvim
could use pango or wathever I’ll be realy happy ! (I saw that it’s
possible on emacs-gui, but I realy prefer the ergonomi in vim).
Olivier Guéry
On Mar 7, 9:37 pm, Tony Mechelynck <antoine.mechely...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 07/03/10 20:25, Olivier Gu ry wrote:
> > Last, I realy miss a proportionnal font. Whatever one say, a clean
> > proportionnal font, with ligatures, is great for writing. If gvim
> > could use pango or wathever I ll be realy happy ! (I saw that it s
> > possible on emacs-gui, but I realy prefer the ergonomi in vim).
> > Nothing s never perfect !
>
> Actually, on X11 systems, gvim with GTK2 GUI does use Pango, but it
> still uses a fixed-size character cell. GTK2 gvim will allow you to set
> any installed font as 'guifont', but proportional fonts look ugly then,
> because in the fixed-size cell, thin characters such as l look lonely
> and fat one such as m look cramped or even clipped.
Ok. I don’t know anything about programming ! I’ve just read that it’s
pango that’s used for texts in gtk. And found it doing a realy great
job (utf, liga, etc.).
I well understand the importance of « fix-cell » and « grid text » for
programming usage of vim and the may we move in the text. It sound
logical to me.
But for huge « dense » text, proportionnal will be beter.
Do you think there’s a chance for the dev to made use able to use
proportional fonts ?
I don’t want bother devs with that since it must be one of the huge
FAQ they get ;)
Regards,
Olivier.
Olivier Guéry
On Mar 7, 9:37 pm, Tony Mechelynck <antoine.mechely...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 07/03/10 20:25, Olivier Gu ry wrote:
> > Last, I realy miss a proportionnal font. Whatever one say, a clean
> > proportionnal font, with ligatures, is great for writing. If gvim
> > could use pango or wathever I ll be realy happy ! (I saw that it s
> > possible on emacs-gui, but I realy prefer the ergonomi in vim).
> > Nothing s never perfect !
>
> Actually, on X11 systems, gvim with GTK2 GUI does use Pango, but it
> still uses a fixed-size character cell. GTK2 gvim will allow you to set
> any installed font as 'guifont', but proportional fonts look ugly then,
> because in the fixed-size cell, thin characters such as l look lonely
> and fat one such as m look cramped or even clipped.
Ok. I don’t know anything about programming ! I’ve just read that it’s
Tony Mechelynck
An orthogonal character grid with horizontal lines and vertical columns
is so fundamental to Vim philosophy that I don't figure it could be
changed without rewriting the whole C source from A to Z, alpha to
omega, А to Я, aleph to tav and alif to yaa.
See also the last item at ":help design-not". If you want a fancy
WYSIWYG open-source text processor with proportional fonts,
justification and what-not, don't use Vim, use oowriter.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
His head smashed in, and his heart cut out,
And his liver removed, and his bowels unplugged,
And his nostrils raped, and his bottom burned off,
And his penis split ... and his ...
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" PYTHON (MONTY)
PICTURES LTD
Olivier Guéry
On Mar 7, 10:45 pm, Tony Mechelynck <antoine.mechely...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 07/03/10 21:53, Olivier Guéry wrote:
> See also the last item at ":help design-not". If you want a fancy
> WYSIWYG open-source text processor with proportional fonts,
> justification and what-not, don't use Vim, use oowriter.
I’ll shure do this, if only I could find any editor with this kind of
text navigation / modification that vim have. I tried in abiword, but
i can’t change the bindings (I’m using a french dvorak keyboard).
One of the wishlist for pyroom is a vim mode. But it’s not planed.
Knowing this limitation of mono-fonts, I still use vim… so I’ll deal
with it. Waiting for an editor to be the on of my dreams !
Regards,
Olivier.
Tim Chase
> On 02/01/10 15:34, Tim Chase wrote:
>> I've never had the problem because I tend to live in normal mode,
>> leaving insert mode as soon as I've entered my text. However, it
>> wouldn't be too hard to do something like
>>
>> :inoremap :x<cr> <esc>:x<cr>
>
> Vim, having forgotten that he's put such a useful abbreviation in his
> vimrc, and when he turns to talk about exiting... suddenly his Vim (or
> the current window at least) will go away :-P
Like Unix and C, Vim will happily give you enough rope to hang
yourself if you ask for it ;-)
-tim
Teemu Likonen
> [...] if only I could find any editor with this kind of text
> navigation / modification that vim have.
The entire Vim can't be reproduced elsewhere but there might still be
some choices for you.
(1) Emacs has a built-in Vi editor (viper-mode). It works on buffer
level so you can have Vi editing turned on in some buffers and off in
some buffers. Emacs editing keys are always available in insert mode.
I'm mainly an Emacs user and while I don't use viper-mode all the time I
sometimes realize that some task is more efficient to do with Vi
commands. Then I just switch.
(2) I've seen someone talking about a Vi editor extension for Kate text
editor. I haven't tried it myself, though. Kate is pretty good editor
and better than most editors. With Vi editing it might suit your needs.
Both Emacs and Kate support using proportional fonts.
Dotan Cohen
Kate, the KDE Advanced Text Editor, has a VI mode and supports
proportional fonts! To get the feature in Koffice, please comment in
support of this feature request:
VI mode, like Kate has
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219889
Dotan Cohen
> proportional fonts! To get the feature in Koffice, please comment in
> support of this feature request:
>
> VI mode, like Kate has
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219889
>
The same feature request, for Open Office:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=89663
--
Dotan Cohen
http://bido.com
http://what-is-what.com
Please CC me if you want to be sure that I read your message. I do not
read all list mail.
Olivier Guéry
On Mar 8, 10:14 pm, Dotan Cohen <dotanco...@gmail.com> wrote:
with it. Waiting for an editor to be the on of my dreams !
>
> Kate, the KDE Advanced Text Editor, has a VI mode and supports
> proportional fonts! To get the feature in Koffice, please comment in
> support of this feature request:
>
> VI mode, like Kate hashttps://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219889
Thank’s for the vi mode in kate. I’ve seen this time ago.
I search but can’t find a way to change the keybinding of the vi mode
(as a vim user (and phisiotherapist, I like ergonomy, so I use a
french dvorak layout call bépo).
Regards.
Olivier.
Reid Thompson
gedit has a vi plugin also
as does netbeans and eclipse (although the eclipse one may not be free
-- can't recall)