Vim version 4.5 has been released
Bram Moolenaar
This is a bug-fix version of Vim 4.2. There are no new features, just fixes
for reported problems.
Vim is an almost compatible version of the UNIX editor vi. Many new features
have been added: multi level undo, command line history, filename completion,
block operations, etc. Those who don't know vi can probably skip this
message, unless you are prepared to learn something new and useful. Vim is
especially useful for editing C programs.
Vim should run on any Unix flavor, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows
NT, OS/2, Atari MiNT and Amiga. Ports for VMS and Mac are still being worked
on.
The most interesting changes (there are a whole lot more):
New on-line help system.
Help is now displayed in a window. Tags can be used to jump around
in the documentation (like hypertext links).
Mouse support.
The mouse is supported in an xterm and for MS-DOS. It can be used to
position the cursor, select the visual area, paste a register, etc.
Graphical User Interface (GUI).
Included support for GUI: menu's, mouse, scrollbars, etc. Currently
only with Motif and Athena interface.
Command line editing improved.
Separate history for search commands. Improved command line
completion (for tags, help, buffer names, etc).
Improved indenting for C programs.
Added 'cindent' option for configurable C indent mode. Automatic
indenting while inserting text. The "=" operator can be used to
indent specific lines. Formatting of comments (also for other
languages and e-mail).
Searching for words in include files.
Added commands to search for a word in the current file and in
included files. List the first match, list all matches or jump to a
match. Quickly find out where a define, function of variable is
declared.
Word completion in Insert mode.
Added commands to complete the word before the cursor in Insert mode.
Matches can be found in the current file, included files and/or a
dictionary. Works a lot better than the word completion macros.
Automatic commands.
Commands can be automatically executed when reading a file, writing a
file, jumping to another buffer, etc., depending on the file name.
This is useful to set options and mappings for C programs,
documentation, plain text, e-mail, etc. This also makes it possible
to edit compressed files.
Text objects.
After an operator and in visual mode, text object commands can be used
to quickly select a word, line or paragraph. Delete the current
sentence with "ds". Format the current paragraph with "Qp".
Options.
A whole bunch of new options. Command line completion can be used to
get the old value. Added '&' after option: reset to default value.
Added '!' after boolean option: invert value.
Support for editing one-line paragraphs.
When a line is longer than the window width, it can be broken at a
space or other convenient position. Commands have been added to move
the cursor a screen line up/down.
Usage of key names.
Special keys now all have a name like <Up>, <End>, etc. This name is
used for mappings, in listings, and many other things. Added a number
of new special keys.
Viminfo.
The command line history, marks and registers can be stored in a file
that is automatically read on startup and written on exit.
Tag support improved.
Static tags and Emacs tag files are now supported. Tag completion
works better.
Improved (error) messages.
A lot of error messages include the reason for the error. The
'showcommand' includes partially typed mappings.
Swap file.
Included checking of the actual file name in a swap file, avoids
giving bogus "swap file exists" messages. Give more information about
the swap file with the "swap file exists" message and when recovering.
Included catching of deadly signals for Unix. Swap files for
unmodified buffers are deleted, other swap files are preserved before
exiting. Improved recovery when there are multiple swap files.
Compilation improvements.
Autoconf is used to adjust to different Unix flavors, editing the
Makefile is rarely required.
32 bits PC version.
There is now a new version of Vim for Windows NT and Windows 95. It
supports long file names, uses all available memory and many more
enhancements. There is also a protected mode version, compiled with
DJGPP, that runs under Windows 3.1 and MSDOS. It supports long file
names where available.
Miscellaneous new features.
Implemented incremental search.
A whole bunch of commands that start with "g": Goto declaration, show
ascii value of character under the cursor, go back to end of word,
reselect last Visual area, etc..
Added the ":retab" command. Can be used to change the size of a
<Tab>, replace spaces with a <Tab> or a <Tab> with spaces.
Implemented "Vim -r" to list any swap files that can be found.
The "Q" operator no longer affects empty lines.
Added '-' register for deletes of less than one line.
Quickfix: Support for several error formats at the same time.
Added separate mapping for normal mode and visual mode.
Allow for digraphs to be entered in reverse.
Added commands to search for #if/#endif and start/end of comment.
Added ":abclear" and ":mapclear": remove all abbreviations/mappings.
Added check for last modification time of original file before
overwriting it.
Vi compatibility improvements.
A few more things have been made vi-compatible. The 'cpoptions'
option has a few flags to switch specific vi-compatibility items
on/off.
-- VIM Distribution Sites --
Vim can be found at:
ftp://ftp.oce.nl/pub/misc/vim/ (Holland)
Mirrors:
ftp://jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/unix/vim/ (USA, fast)
ftp://nuxi.cs.ucdavis.edu/pub/vim (USA, fast)
ftp://petrified.cic.net/mirrors/vim/ (USA)
ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/misc/editors/vim/ (Germany)
ftp://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/utilities/vim/ (Germany, incomplete)
A Linux binary statically linked with Motif can soon be found at:
ftp://ftp.blarg.net/pub/vim
ftp://nuxi.cs.ucdavis.edu/pub/vim/linux
A few Win32 binaries (for NT on Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC) can be found at:
ftp://ftp.halcyon.com/local/gvr/vim/
file size system contents
unix/vim-4.5.tar.gz 1006K Unix Sources and docs.
os2/vim45os2.zip 647K OS/2 OS/2 binary and docs.
pc/vim45r16.zip 604K MS-DOS 16 bit real mode binary and docs. Runs
on most MS-DOS systems, but is
restricted to using 640K memory.
pc/vim45p32.zip 676K MS-DOS 32 bit protected mode binary and docs.
It is compiled with DJGPP, it needs a
DPMI driver (CWSDPMI is included).
Supports long file names where
available.
pc/vim45w32.zip 636K WIN-32 32 bit Windows 95/NT binary and docs.
Only runs on Windows 95 or Windows NT
and supports long file names.
pc/vim45src.zip 763K MS-DOS Sources (with CR-LF).
amiga/vim45src.lha 780K Amiga Sources.
amiga/vim45bin.lha 580K Amiga Binary and docs.
README 9K This file.
[Files for Atari MiNT will be available a bit later]
system file type Unpack with
Unix file.tar.gz gunzip file.tar.gz; tar xf file.tar
Amiga file.lha lha -x file.lha
PC file.zip pkunzip -d file.zip
Reporting bugs:
Send them to "mo...@oce.nl". Please be brief, all the time that is spend on
answering mail is subtracted from the time that is spend on improving Vim!
Always give a reproducable example and try to find out which settings or other
things influence the appearance of the bug. Try different machines if
possible. Send me patches if you can!
Happy Vimming!
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Bram Moolenaar VIM home page: <URL:http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/vim/>
mo...@oce.nl Interested in helping orphans in Uganda? Ask me for info.