Is it possible to set Vim to be opened with any 'quick help' bar by default?

[zdo...@redhat.com]

Hi all,

currently, there is a proposal for Fedora change https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel-a...@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/U5C4CC2O44E7Q4MVTT772NP667HTP25S/ to make 'nano' the default editor in Fedora by setting 'EDITOR' environment variable to 'nano', which will make all apps which are aligned with POSIX standard to use 'nano'.

POSIX standard defines that a app should use an editor defined in EDITOR variable - if it is not set, use 'vi' (which is nowadays Vim with limited features).

The biggest argument of users which are for the change is a new Linux user doesn't know that he got 'Vi' opened when they commit, so they are not even capable to search on the internet how to save and close the file. And 'nano' has the quick help bar enabled by default at the bottom of terminal.

So I would like to ask - is there such help bar in Vim, which can be enabled via a command in vimrc, so it would be opened every time as it is in 'nano'?

Thank you in advance!

Zdenek

[Christian Brabandt]

That should be possible with a custom plugin. This one does something
similar:
https://github.com/skywind3000/vim-quickui


Best,
Christian
--
Letzte Worte eines Chemikers:
"Der Bunsenbrenner *ist* aus!"

[Rob Foehl]

On Mon, 29 Jun 2020, zdo...@redhat.com wrote:

> currently, there is a proposal for Fedora change to make 'nano' the

> default editor in Fedora by setting 'EDITOR' environment variable to 'nano',

There have been worse ideas... For example:

> So I would like to ask - is there such help bar in Vim, which can be enabled
> via a command in vimrc, so it would be opened every time as it is in 'nano'?

No. Stop. Piling this nonsense into the system vimrc -- which shouldn't
exist in the first place, and absolutely should not be an amalgamation of
the packagers' personal favorite vimrc bits -- is incredibly hostile to
everyone who actually uses Vim.

On that note: why does Vim still support a system vimrc at all? Fedora is
far from the only distribution shipping dumb defaults and causing users
pain via this anachronism. defaults.vim almost solved the problem, then
doubled down on making it worse. Explicitly loading a user vimrc with -u
is the only way to solve it at present, and doing that correctly in all
cases is a decidedly nontrivial exercise...

-Rob

[zdo...@redhat.com]

Thanks for the tip, Christian!

The plugin isn't by default in Fedora and IMO adding is quite overhead to simulate nano :( .

So I'll just add EDITOR=vi to keep me away from 'nano' :) .