Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Eric Weir
I've downloaded and installed a copy of MacVim. I've peeked at a few of the help topics. [I'd like to run the tutorial, but haven't figured out how to do that, yet.] I'm not a programmer. Far from it. I'm intrigued for a least a couple reasons, the main one being the fact that Vim is command-driven, that everything's done from the keyboard. [My very first experience with an "editor" was with Wordstar on CPM, and I've missed doing everything from the keyboard ever since.] The outliner plugins appeal to me as well. [I was a long-time devote of MaxThink, running it in a DOS Window after moving to Windows from DOS, and in DOSBox under Linux and now on a Mac.] And so does the possibility of using it as a file manager as well as editor.
Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of?
Thanks,
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA USA
eew...@bellsouth.net
tux.
> So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of?
I use Vim (also) as a blog draft editor, so, mainly, yes. However, the
full power of its command mode may be a bit too complicated just for
writing plain text...
David Ohlemacher
1. Start a cheatsheet. Don't download one. Make your own. Making it
will help you learn. I use Tomboy Notes, but at the beginning, paper is
better.
2. Every time you find you don't know how to do something, like joining
lines, look it up ( use :help join or google vim join ), and then add
it to your list. Once you really know the basic commands, remove it
from your sheet.
3. Start vim and then enter :help tutor. The ':' puts you in command
mode so you can run the help command. If it does not work, hit <ESC>
and try again.
4. Learn what the modes mean (input, command, visual). Without
understanding them, everything else will be confusing. Commands do not
work if you aren't in the right mode first.
5. Use it. Your fingers will get the habit.
6. The Vim book is helpful.
7. Once you get going, this mail list is very helpful.
After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the
rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit
'i' out of habit in your email app....and not like seeing an i.
I actually have used vim for many years, but only the bare basics. I
used it to tweak a file here or there, but never to write anything.
Then KDE came out with Kdevelop 4. Uggg! After using KDevelop since
2.0, I gave up on it. I looked for other IDEs and liked none. So I
started learning vim. I love it and no longer miss KDevelop.
Especially since I am finding myself writing code on a machine across
the country through ssh.
My favorite thing about it is to be able open any number of windows in
one pane ( see :sp and :vsp and CTRL-W to navigate between windows).
vim turns my keyboard into a 200+ key text editing gamepad.
Good luck,
-d
--
David Ohlemacher
Senior Software Engineer
Scientific Solutions Inc.
99 Perimeter Rd Nashua New Hampshire 03063
603-880-3784
. o .
. . o
o o o
Tony Mechelynck
Oh, it is not at all ridiculous to think of, the idea is just to take it
slowly, bit by bit, and not think that next week you will already know
everything about Vim from A to Zed, Alpha to Omega and Aleph to Tav.
How to use the vimtutor is explained in the first few lines of
vimtutor.bat (for Windows) or of vimtutor (for Unix - Linux - Mac OS X -
etc.) It is slightly different for Windows and for other OSes. Run that
tutor as soon as you can, it will teach you the basics.
You're now subscribed to the vim_use, that's another good point. Read
what is said here, and while at first some posts may pass you completely
over the head, others will teach you useful tips and tricks about how to
get the most out of Vim.
And finally, don't hesitate to use the help. When, in one of the posts
in this mailing list, you come across a command, an option, etc., which
is obscure to you, go find its help. The Vim help is infinitely better
than what most other programs try to pass off as "help" and often is
hardly more than an advertising pamphlet by comparison: with Vim,
*everything* is covered in the help. So much so that the newbie
sometimes faces a sort of needle-and-haystack problem; however, even
against that problem there is help -- when I started using Vim it was in
several places, but now most of the "help about help" has been brought
together in one place, namely the helpfile helphelp.txt. So by typing
:help helphelp.txt
in a running Vim, you will be brought to "help about using help", which
IMO is the most important thing to master in order to become a
proficient Vim user.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket.
Tim Gray
>Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the
>commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any
>ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a
>writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of?
I'm not a hardcore programmer, but I do use vim and other tools for technical
stuff. If you really are not doing anything programming or technical related,
and just looking for a plain text editor, I might recommend looking at some
other options. Not that you couldn't get along with vim, but there are other
tools out there that might be a little easier to get at first. And if you
don't need all of the power of vim, why not use something a bit easier to
learn?
With that thought, I'd recommend looking at BBEdit (or it's free 'light'
version, Textwrangler) or Textmate. Though these programs don't have the
modal nature of vim, you can do most if not all of your work in them all
through the keyboard: selecting text, find and replace, general text
modification, etc. Of course try out MacVim too along side the other two.
I'm a long time user of BBEdit and have been very happy with it. The support
is great and it has a great manual. It doesn't have quite all the power,
features, or customizability of vim, but it is pretty easy to dive in and use
it as a simple plain text editor with no real learning curve. And if you want
more, there is plenty there.
David Kahn
For me it came down to getting a few simple things straight like using nerdtree as file browser, learning how to grep / vimgrep to search, and how to find and replace. I would think if you are just using to edit text you could get up to speed pretty fast.
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Paul Stewart
Firstly, I do use vim for programming (mainly php and sql), but, I also use it as a text editor for typing and writing out stuff. For example, I use it to keep minutes of meetings I attend while I am listening....the commands allow me to skip around the page so much faster than if I was using word or another non-vim text editor.
Also, I am a user of viemu, which emulates vim in Word and outlook....it is a very good program (I have no financial interest in the product, but am a user) I strongly recommend you have a look at www.viemu.com
Basically, the more you use vim, the faster you become....personally, I try to use it whenever I can...I even use the vimperator plugin for firefox...I am so used to the key movements that I hate using the mouse now, it seems slow and foreign to me, almost frustrating.
Hope this helps
Regards
Paul
John Degen
> On Apr 07, 2011 at 04:15 PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote:
>
> >Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the
> >commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any
> >ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a
> >writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of?
I used to be a translator. In the final years of this 'career' I used
Gvim as a sort of frontend to Microsoft Word and translation software.
I found that combination of autocompletion, autocorrection, marks,
sessions, the convenience of keyboard only editing, Vim's speed and
reliability, and the ease with which complicated commands can be
assigned to keystrokes helped me to become both a faster and a more
accurate typist. The added bonus was that sometimes I had to make
changes in exported translation memories (plain text files) and my Vim
knowledge saved many an hour of line by line corrections.
So I'd say: use Vim and learn a little every day. You can change
litterally everything in Vim, including its looks and what happens if
you type "\t". You could probably even make it behave like Wordstar.
John
David Kahn
The way I learned vi:
1. Start a cheatsheet. Don't download one. Make your own. Making it will help you learn. I use Tomboy Notes, but at the beginning, paper is better.
Agreed... I copied and pasted to an ugly text file but it worked! But using others sheets wholesale didnt.
2. Every time you find you don't know how to do something, like joining lines, look it up ( use :help join or google vim join ), and then add it to your list. Once you really know the basic commands, remove it from your sheet.
3. Start vim and then enter :help tutor. The ':' puts you in command mode so you can run the help command. If it does not work, hit <ESC> and try again.
4. Learn what the modes mean (input, command, visual). Without understanding them, everything else will be confusing. Commands do not work if you aren't in the right mode first.
5. Use it. Your fingers will get the habit.
6. The Vim book is helpful.
7. Once you get going, this mail list is very helpful.
After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit 'i' out of habit in your email app....and not like seeing an i.
I cracked up the first time I found myself trying to use 'k' to move up a cell in a spreadsheet :)
I actually have used vim for many years, but only the bare basics. I used it to tweak a file here or there, but never to write anything. Then KDE came out with Kdevelop 4. Uggg! After using KDevelop since 2.0, I gave up on it. I looked for other IDEs and liked none. So I started learning vim. I love it and no longer miss KDevelop. Especially since I am finding myself writing code on a machine across the country through ssh.
My favorite thing about it is to be able open any number of windows in one pane ( see :sp and :vsp and CTRL-W to navigate between windows).
Amen!
vim turns my keyboard into a 200+ key text editing gamepad.
Good luck,
-d
--
David Ohlemacher
Senior Software Engineer
Scientific Solutions Inc.
99 Perimeter Rd Nashua New Hampshire 03063
603-880-3784
. o .
. . o
o o o
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:59 PM, David Ohlemacher wrote:
> 1. Start a cheatsheet. Don't download one. Make your own. Making it will help you learn. I use Tomboy Notes, but at the beginning, paper is better.
> ....
> After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit 'i' out of habit in your email app....and not like seeing an i.
Thanks for the suggestion, David. They make sense. I can imagine getting to the place where it irritates me to have to leave the keyboard.
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:03 PM, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
> And finally, don't hesitate to use the help. When, in one of the posts in this mailing list, you come across a command, an option, etc., which is obscure to you, go find its help. The Vim help is infinitely better than what most other programs try to pass off as "help" and often is hardly more than an advertising pamphlet by comparison: with Vim, *everything* is covered in the help. So much so that the newbie sometimes faces a sort of needle-and-haystack problem; however, even against that problem there is help -- when I started using Vim it was in several places, but now most of the "help about help" has been brought together in one place, namely the helpfile helphelp.txt. So by typing
>
> :help helphelp.txt
>
> in a running Vim, you will be brought to "help about using help", which IMO is the most important thing to master in order to become a proficient Vim user.
Wow! Even help for help. Cool. I'd gotten the sense already that Vim's help was really good. But help for help. Pretty cool.
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:11 PM, Tim Gray wrote:
> With that thought, I'd recommend looking at BBEdit (or it's free 'light' version, Textwrangler) or Textmate. Though these programs don't have the modal nature of vim, you can do most if not all of your work in them all through the keyboard: selecting text, find and replace, general text modification, etc. Of course try out MacVim too along side the other two.
Thanks for the suggestion, Tim. I'll keep it in mind.
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:19 PM, David Kahn wrote:
> What you can remember is aside from a few things, you can use macvim with the mouse as you get used to it. I actually did my learning curve in about 6-8 hours and got productive (I am a programmer), and for about a week kept looking things up and adding to my kbd commands.... if you do this and take things one at a time I actually think you can have fun learning it. Just dont be too hard on yourself, allow mouse use for awhile :)
>
> For me it came down to getting a few simple things straight like using nerdtree as file browser, learning how to grep / vimgrep to search, and how to find and replace. I would think if you are just using to edit text you could get up to speed pretty fast.
Thanks, for the encouragement, David.
Tim Gray
>Thanks for the suggestion, Tim. I'll keep it in mind.
No problem. I've really been enjoying vim, but I feel like to get the most
out of it you need to a) put the time in to learn it and b) put the time in
*configuring* to make it work for you.
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:27 PM, Paul Stewart wrote:
> Firstly, I do use vim for programming (mainly php and sql), but, I also use it as a text editor for typing and writing out stuff. For example, I use it to keep minutes of meetings I attend while I am listening....the commands allow me to skip around the page so much faster than if I was using word or another non-vim text editor.
> ....
> Basically, the more you use vim, the faster you become....personally, I try to use it whenever I can...I even use the vimperator plugin for firefox...I am so used to the key movements that I hate using the mouse now, it seems slow and foreign to me, almost frustrating.
Thanks for the encouragement, Paul. Don't use Word, so Viemu would not useful to me, but I did check it out. The emulation of it in use in Visual Studio is fascinating.
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:33 PM, John Degen wrote:
> I used to be a translator. In the final years of this 'career' I used
> Gvim as a sort of frontend to Microsoft Word and translation software.
> I found that combination of autocompletion, autocorrection, marks,
> sessions, the convenience of keyboard only editing, Vim's speed and
> reliability, and the ease with which complicated commands can be
> assigned to keystrokes helped me to become both a faster and a more
> accurate typist.
> ...
> So I'd say: use Vim and learn a little every day. You can change
> litterally everything in Vim, including its looks and what happens if
> you type "\t". You could probably even make it behave like Wordstar.
Thanks, John. Hope to find some free time in the next few days just to mess around with it -- actually, to do the tutorial -- and maybe get over the initial hump of total bafflement.
David Lam
I've downloaded and installed a copy of MacVim. I've peeked at a few of the help topics. [I'd like to run the tutorial, but haven't figured out how to do that, yet.] I'm not a programmer. Far from it. I'm intrigued for a least a couple reasons, the main one being the fact that Vim is command-driven, that everything's done from the keyboard. [My very first experience with an "editor" was with Wordstar on CPM, and I've missed doing everything from the keyboard ever since.] The outliner plugins appeal to me as well. [I was a long-time devote of MaxThink, running it in a DOS Window after moving to Windows from DOS, and in DOSBox under Linux and now on a Mac.] And so does the possibility of using it as a file manager as well as editor.
Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of?
hmm, well I use Vim for programming mainly, but personally I'd use it for anything involving text
two more features you might find useful for plain ol' writing:
- spell checking :h spell (basically, :set spell, then z= to correct a word)
- insert mode word completion :h i_ctrl-p (type the start of a word, then ctrl+p to complete it)
Tony Mechelynck
[...]
> Wow! Even help for help. Cool. I'd gotten the sense already that Vim's help was really good. But help for help. Pretty cool.
With a documentation as voluminous as Vim's, you need ways to help you
find what you're looking for: analytical table of contents, indexes,
help by subject, searching the whole help text for some regular
expression, ...
When the latter (the :helpgrep command) was added (at patchlevel
6.1.423) I found it pretty cool too. (Then, as a kind of afterthought,
:vimgrep arrived in 7.0, which shows how important the help is to Vim
development. :-) )
Best regards,
Tony.
--
All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent
upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a
visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is
informing, stimulating and ennobling.
-- H. L. Mencken
Tim Chase
> I feel like to get the most out of it you need to a) put the
> time in to learn it and b) put the time in *configuring* to
> make it work for you.
While I certainly agree with (a), I'm at the other end of the
spectrum on (b). One of the things I like most about vi/vim/gvim
is that I have it on all my *nix boxes by default (whether vim on
Linux and Mac, or nvi on OpenBSD if I haven't yet installed vim)
and have installed it on my Win32 boxes...it behaves (mostly) the
same everywhere out-of-the-box without any tweaks. It might be a
rarity as lots of folks on the list have tricked-out configs, but
other people have told similar tales[1]. The cost of losing a
config or keeping it in sync across umpteen boxes is more hassle
than it's worth to me.
Just my $0.02 on it. (and to answer your initial question, I use
Vim for all my text editing, whether code, HTML/CSS, or just
plain vanilla text-files like to-do lists and emails)
-tim
[1]
http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html
David Ohlemacher
Tony Mechelynck
My approach to vimrc, colorscheme etc. is that it all grew, I'd be
tempted to say "naturally". My first vimrc was
runtime vimrc_example.vim
which isn't much but was already (to me) much better than just -N on the
command-line. Then when I found something I didn't like, I changed it,
usually by adding something at the bottom: my second vimrc was
runtime vimrc_example.vim
filetype indent off
to avoid high-handed intervention in my unsystematic HTML indenting. It
all grew from there, and nowadays it's 688 lines (including empty lines
and comments), not counting a colorscheme and a few plugins that I wrote
or downloaded.
As for keeping it in sync, I don't have your problems: I used to have
one vimrc, %HOME%\_vimrc on a Windows Fat32 partition, symlinked from
wherever ~/.vimrc was on an ext2 (at that time) Linux partition on the
same disk. Now I've scrapped Windows, I don't even use double-boot
anymore, but I've kept the "if has('unix') | ... | else | ... | endif"
(and similar) constructs. And nowadays I keep my vimrc in the $HOME for
my unprivileged login name, but symlinked from /root/.vimrc so even if I
have to switch from one to the other, Vim behaves identically. That's
the amount of it.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!
Scott Bicknell
> Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity
> of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering
> if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've
> gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that
> just ridiculous to think of?
Not at all. I don't program other than writing occasional shell
scripts. Most of my use of Vim is for writing prose. Using
anything else for composition and editing is unthinkable.
Whenever I try to use a word processor or other editor for
writing, the document ends up with unwanted auto-formatting and
tell-tail Vim commands in the text.
Go through the vimtutor included with the program, but also read
the user manual (:h usr_toc). It is based on the book "Vi
IMproved--Vim", which is an in-depth tutorial. The user manual is
truly excellent.
--
Scott Bicknell
lith
On Thursday, April 7, 2011 10:15:37 PM UTC+2, Eric Weir wrote:
Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of?
There is also the question how you get text edited with vim into some format you can submit. vim isn't particularly good at editing text with no hard line breaks (tw=0), i.e. "soft wrap". In order to get some text formatting into e.g. Word, most likely requires the use of some command line tool that converts the text to something Word can read. I'm not sure such tools are easy to use for somebody who has never written a single line of code.
Regards,
Tom
Magnus Woldrich
>Wow! Even help for help. Cool. I'd gotten the sense already that Vim's
>help was really good. But help for help. Pretty cool.
Indeed, the help in vim is fantastic. Other than that, I'd recommend just
reading this list; look up stuff people talk about, don't be afraid to ask.
The #vim channel on freenode is also a great place for a more realtime
alternative.
--
Magnus Woldrich
m...@japh.se
http://japh.se
Magnus Woldrich
>So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here
>who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that
>just ridiculous to think of?
Though they sure are programmers, I'd like to point out that Tom Christiansen
used Vim when writing the Perl Cookbook [0] (his co-author Nathan Torkington
used emacs).
0: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565922433/
Magnus Woldrich
> After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the
> rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit
> 'i' out of habit in your email app....and not like seeing an i.
I use vim for everything. And I have vim-bindings in *every* application that I
use.
Here's my setup:
IRC: irssi with vi-mode [0] and ii [1] with vim [2]
PDF: apvlv [3]
Shell: zsh with set -o vi
Music: mpd [4] with Pimpd [5]
Video: mplayer
Readline: set editing-mode vi
set keymap vi-insert
Browser: Firefox with pentadactyl [6]
Writing Mail: mutt, with editor set to vim
Oh, and I also use Vim for programming and every other situation where I write
text. Pentadactyl even lets you use Vim when entering text in web forms; just
press ^i and Vim is launched.
0: https://github.com/trapd00r/irssi-scripts/tree/master/vim-mode
1: http://tools.suckless.org/ii/
2: http://nion.modprobe.de/blog/archives/440-Using-the-ii-irc-client.html
3: https://code.google.com/p/apvlv/
4: http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Music_Player_Daemon_Wiki
5: https://github.com/trapd00r/pimpd
6: http://dactyl.sourceforge.net/pentadactyl/
Anthony Campbell
> On 2011-04-07 16:15, Eric Weir wrote:
> >So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here
> >who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that
> >just ridiculous to think of?
>
> Though they sure are programmers, I'd like to point out that Tom Christiansen
> used Vim when writing the Perl Cookbook [0] (his co-author Nathan Torkington
> used emacs).
>
I'm not a programmer, except for the occasional very simple shell
script, but I use vim for all my writing. (I write books, both hard copy
and ebooks.)
I dislike word processors. (I've been forced to use OpenOffice for one
particular purpose recently and hate it.) I think that the process of
generating prose should be separate from producing print-ready copy. So
I do all my composing in Vim, which allows me to change things easily as
much as I like. If I want it to look nice I then import it into LyX,
which gives me publishable files. For short things like letters, I have
made latex templates which I read into vim.
Yes, Vim is more complex than simpler editors like nano, but the extra
facilities that Vim provides make it the better choice. I'm no Vim guru,
but I've built up my knowledge from the help files. I pick up useful
tips from time to time on this list, and when I've had specific problems
I couldn't solve, people here have been very kind with supplying
solutions. I've gradually constructed my own .vimrc and .gvimrc files.
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
Vera, Pedro L.
On 2011-04-07 16:15, Eric Weir wrote:
>So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here
>who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that
>just ridiculous to think of?
I am not a programmer. I use Vim to create and edit text and generate publication ready pdfs, using latex (in particular the vim-latex suite). I have used Vim and latex to produce scientific articles, book chapters, applications to government granting agencies. The latter, in particular, are large documents (25 text pages) with embedded figures and bibliographies.
Although the learning curve was steep, I am very pleased with the results and find that Vim is ideally suited for text editing. In fact, I rarely do any text editing any more outside of Vim (and latex). When I am forced to use a word-processing program, I find myself trying to navigate using Vim's key commands. So, the point is that, with perseverance, effort and practice, it becomes second nature after a while. The tutorial included is a good start, and there are also many good guides and "how-to's" on line that will help build familiarity with Vim. There are also some excellent tutorials on latex as well as books available.
Pedro L Vera
Sasha
without unusual difficulty, and you can learn the more advanced
facilities at your own pace. Most of the adjustment is just getting
comfortable with a new set of keys. Despite first appearances, this
should not be fundamentally difficult, especially for someone who has
used CPM, DOS, Linux and Mac and made all the corresponding
adjustments; those adjustments always require some ability to self-
teach and some patience with things being different, which is all you
need to become productive in Vim for any kind of editing. My
background is similar to yours and for me, adjusting to Vim was really
a matter of patience more than difficulty. I feel that many ordinary,
nontechnical computer users of today would not have the patience to
learn WordStar. Programming only comes in if you start writing your
own scripts, and you would know if that was something you needed to
do. Otherwise, don't worry about it.
Everyone mentions the tutorial because working through it a couple of
times is a good way to get through those first few days, to the point
where there is much less temptation to give up. (I'm sorry I don't
have the details on how to run it in macvim, but actually it is just a
text file which you copy and work on using vim - all 'vimtutor' does
is copy the file and open the copy in vim for you to edit). My path
included changing some key mappings in vimrc to get more comfortable,
but try the tutorial first (in the end I have undone most of my key
remappings to be more efficient). Don't be afraid of people calling
you names if you use the arrow keys or something - it's up to you how
much hand motion you can endure ;) You can change almost everything
later. After that, the speed of your learning really depends on how
much of your work you can push to Vim.
Vim is great for anyone who wants to work on text exclusively from the
keyboard, and well worth spending a few less-productive days to get
used to. If you learn it, you get an editor which will follow you to
pretty much every platform, which is fast and lightweight, which can
be customized to almost arbitrary needs, and which already has a lot
of good user-developed plugins. This combination is not so common. You
don't need to dive down to its full depth just to use it, but it's
really nice to have that depth there when you want it. The down side
you have noticed is that it isn't very "discoverable," since learning
it does require reading documentation (e.g. :help). If you prefer
pretty and simple and a highly discoverable, mouse-centered interface
with default keys that are the same as most other editors, right out
of the box, then there are a lot of editors which are better for that.
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 10:20 PM, Tim Chase wrote:
> On 04/07/2011 08:05 PM, Tim Gray wrote:
>> I feel like to get the most out of it you need to a) put the
>> time in to learn it and b) put the time in *configuring* to
>> make it work for you.
>
> While I certainly agree with (a), I'm at the other end of the spectrum on (b).
>
> [1] http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html
Thanks, Tim. The note on this link recommends O'Reilly's book on Vi and when you go to the O'Reilly pages linked in it their are rave comments about the book.
Is this the book for a totally new *Vim* user of my background with the use I've indicated? Doesn't O'Reilly have a book directly on Vim?
Regards,
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 9:14 AM, Sasha wrote:
> Don't be intimidated. Vim can be used like a simple DOS-era editor
> without unusual difficulty, and you can learn the more advanced
> facilities at your own pace. Most of the adjustment is just getting
> comfortable with a new set of keys. Despite first appearances, this
> should not be fundamentally difficult, especially for someone who has
> used CPM, DOS, Linux and Mac and made all the corresponding
> adjustments; those adjustments always require some ability to self-
> teach and some patience with things being different, which is all you
> need to become productive in Vim for any kind of editing.
Thanks, Sasha. Very helpful -- and encouraging.
Eric Weir
On Apr 7, 2011, at 11:20 PM, Scott Bicknell wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 04:15:37PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote:
>> Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity
>> of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering
>> if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've
>> gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that
>> just ridiculous to think of?
>
> Not at all. I don't program other than writing occasional shell
> scripts. Most of my use of Vim is for writing prose. Using
> anything else for composition and editing is unthinkable.
> Whenever I try to use a word processor or other editor for
> writing, the document ends up with unwanted auto-formatting and
> tell-tail Vim commands in the text.
Thanks, Scott. Glad to hear that there are in fact others using Vim as I'm contemplating using it.
> Go through the vimtutor included with the program, but also read
> the user manual (:h usr_toc). It is based on the book "Vi
>>
> IMproved--Vim", which is an in-depth tutorial. The user manual is
> truly excellent.
Will do.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:58 AM, Magnus Woldrich wrote:
> Indeed, the help in vim is fantastic. Other than that, I'd recommend just
> reading this list; look up stuff people talk about, don't be afraid to ask.
Thanks, Magnus.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:43 AM, lith wrote:
> There is also the question how you get text edited with vim into some format you can submit. vim isn't particularly good at editing text with no hard line breaks (tw=0), i.e. "soft wrap". In order to get some text formatting into e.g. Word, most likely requires the use of some command line tool that converts the text to something Word can read. I'm not sure such tools are easy to use for somebody who has never written a single line of code.
Thanks, Tom. I've wondered about that. Lack of word wrap is a concern.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:52 AM, Magnus Woldrich wrote:
> Here's my setup:
>
> IRC: irssi with vi-mode [0] and ii [1] with vim [2]
> PDF: apvlv [3]
> Shell: zsh with set -o vi
> Music: mpd [4] with Pimpd [5]
> Video: mplayer
> Readline: set editing-mode vi
> set keymap vi-insert
> Browser: Firefox with pentadactyl [6]
> Writing Mail: mutt, with editor set to vim
In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old. Don't if I'll get where you are before my life ends. Just getting comfortable with Vim as an editor is challenge enough for now.
Anthony Campbell
>
> In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old. Don't if I'll get where you are before my life ends. Just getting comfortable with Vim as an editor is challenge enough for now.
>
I don't think age is a barrier to learning Vim. I'm 78 next month and
Vim doesn't worry me (admittedly, I started using it quite a few years
ago). I find it useful to browse through the documentation when I've
nothing better to do; I quite often come across useful short cuts and
better methods of doing things.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 4:30 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote:
> I dislike word processors. (I've been forced to use OpenOffice for one
> particular purpose recently and hate it.) I think that the process of
> generating prose should be separate from producing print-ready copy. So
> I do all my composing in Vim, which allows me to change things easily as
> much as I like. If I want it to look nice I then import it into LyX,
> which gives me publishable files. For short things like letters, I have
> made latex templates which I read into vim.
Thanks, Anthony. I did all my writing from the early '80s till just a couple years ago on MaxThink, the legendary outlining program, which had absolutely no formatting capabilities. I totally buy the developer's [Neil Larson] philosophy for that application. The emphasis was on supporting thinking, and keeping things that distract you from thinking out of the way. MaxThink was/is a DOS application. Totally command-driven. An attempt at a version with a GUI was a complete flop.
Even today, having finally reluctantly moved on from MaxThink, I keep formatting to a bare minimum -- bolding titles and headings, italicizing subheadings, occasionally footnoting -- and apply it only when sharing long documents with others.
Yeah, I think I hate OpenOffice Writer as much as Word.
Ben Fritz
On Apr 7, 8:13 pm, David Lam <david.k.l...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hmm, well I use Vim for programming mainly, but personally I'd use it for
> anything involving text
>
> two more features you might find useful for plain ol' writing:
>
> - spell checking :h spell (basically, :set spell, then z= to
> correct a word)
> - insert mode word completion :h i_ctrl-p (type the start of a
>
Some other things to be aware of:
1. Text objects. Things like "cap" (change a paragraph) and
"dis" (delete a sentence) would be amazing for writing prose. There
are also text objects for text inside quotes, text inside parentheses,
and more. See :help text-objects within Vim. These text objects work
with any of the Vim operators like 'd' delete, 'y' yank/copy, 'c'
change, and also in visual mode.
2. The Vim Tips wiki. While mostly geared toward programmers, there's
also a lot of stuff to learn. See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Getting_started
for our "new user" tips.
3. If you're just writing prose, the txtfmt plugin may be useful. It
gives you the ability to apply styles like underline, background/
foreground color, italics, and bold to arbitrary text. You can get it
from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2208. It will be
especially useful if you combine it with the :TOhtml command that
comes with Vim. See :help :TOhtml. Using this command you can colorize
you text and then export it to HTML so you can view/print it in a web
browser.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 8:22 AM, Vera, Pedro L. wrote:
> I am not a programmer. I use Vim to create and edit text and generate publication ready pdfs, using latex (in particular the vim-latex suite). I have used Vim and latex to produce scientific articles, book chapters, applications to government granting agencies. The latter, in particular, are large documents (25 text pages) with embedded figures and bibliographies.
>
> Although the learning curve was steep, I am very pleased with the results and find that Vim is ideally suited for text editing. In fact, I rarely do any text editing any more outside of Vim (and latex). When I am forced to use a word-processing program, I find myself trying to navigate using Vim's key commands. So, the point is that, with perseverance, effort and practice, it becomes second nature after a while. The tutorial included is a good start, and there are also many good guides and "how-to's" on line that will help build familiarity with Vim. There are also some excellent tutorials on latex as well as books available.
Thanks, Pedro. I'm willing to put in the effort, once I get over the hump of initial bafflement, which I'm hoping the tutor file will enable me to do.
A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?]
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:19 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote:
> I don't think age is a barrier to learning Vim. I'm 78 next month and
> Vim doesn't worry me (admittedly, I started using it quite a few years
> ago). I find it useful to browse through the documentation when I've
> nothing better to do; I quite often come across useful short cuts and
> better methods of doing things.
Well, guess I'm not so old after all. But still old. There comes a point where there's no denying it. [How about 69?] But then "old" relative. There are ways in which I'm a lot younger than a lot of people a lot younger than I am.
Tim Gray
>A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal
>with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?]
Vim does soft wrap, but it only wraps at the edge of the screen. It can also
be set to soft wrap at word breaks instead of in the middle of words.
Furthermore, you can have vim insert hard line breaks automatically for you
when you write/edit a paragraph. You can find out more if you search for
'fo-table'. If you are writing in really plain text, this might be the way to
go.
Unfortunately, even with these options, this is an area that vim seems to fall
down a little bit on. Other text editors I've used have the capability to
soft wrap at user defined columns, while also matching the indent of the first
line with the soft wrapped lines.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:22 AM, Ben Fritz wrote:
> 1. Text objects. Things like "cap" (change a paragraph) and
> "dis" (delete a sentence) would be amazing for writing prose. There
> are also text objects for text inside quotes, text inside parentheses,
> and more. See :help text-objects within Vim. These text objects work
> with any of the Vim operators like 'd' delete, 'y' yank/copy, 'c'
> change, and also in visual mode.
>
> 2. The Vim Tips wiki. While mostly geared toward programmers, there's
> also a lot of stuff to learn. See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Getting_started
> for our "new user" tips.
>
> 3. If you're just writing prose, the txtfmt plugin may be useful. It
> gives you the ability to apply styles like underline, background/
> foreground color, italics, and bold to arbitrary text. You can get it
> from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2208. It will be
> especially useful if you combine it with the :TOhtml command that
> comes with Vim. See :help :TOhtml. Using this command you can colorize
> you text and then export it to HTML so you can view/print it in a web
> browser.
Thanks, Ben -- on all counts.
Boyko Bantchev
>
> Thanks, Tom. I've wondered about that. Lack of word wrap is a concern.
You can compose plain text in Vim so that each paragraph is a single `physical'
line (Vim will still form as many screen lines as needed to fit the
text in). When
you are finished, Word (or whatever so called word processor) will take care of
formatting (word-wrapping, hyphenation etc.) automatically, as it will see each
line-paragraph as a true paragraph.
Another option is to port your Vim-prepared text to LyX (http://lyx.org) instead
of to a more traditional word processor.
LyX, like Vim, has an excellent documentation, and is an excellent document
preparation system. In addition, you will not need to adhere to the
one-paragraph-
one-line rule while in Vim.
Benjamin R. Haskell
Maybe patch #9 on the Vim Patches page (Correctly indent wrapped lines)
would do what you're looking for?
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/web/vim-patches
No idea of its current status.
--
Best,
Ben
Vera, Pedro L.
>A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?]
It's not an issue. Latex will typeset your document according to its (Latex's) own format and syntax structures. In case you want to pursue this further, here's a site I found extremely helpful at the beginning of my latex adventure, and I still consult it often for reminders/tips/ etc.
http://www.andy-roberts.net/misc/latex/
I would suggest doing the small sample document listed in the "absolute begginer's" section listed in the website and use vim to create the document. The instructions will walk you through generating your document in pdf format. By the way, you will have to install Latex in your system. I think you mentioned you are running MacOS, in which case this website will be useful
http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started
I mainly run linux in all my boxes, but have one Mac where Vim (or MacVim) and latex are running very nicely.
Best of luck!
Pedro
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:37 AM, Tim Gray wrote:
> Vim does soft wrap, but it only wraps at the edge of the screen. It can also be set to soft wrap at word breaks instead of in the middle of words.
Thanks, Tim. That much would be good enough for starters, especially if the Vim window is kept at a reasonable [for me] size. wo all MaxThink, the outlining application that I relied upon for about 20 years, does. However, when text was imported into word processors margins could be set.
> Furthermore, you can have vim insert hard line breaks automatically for you when you write/edit a paragraph. You can find out more if you search for 'fo-table'. If you are writing in really plain text, this might be the way to go.
My preference, in my current state of ignorance, anyway, would be to never insert hard line breaks. I do have to share most of my writing with people who don't know anything but Word. So when ready for sharing I would import into another application for formatting. Apple's TextEdit is perfectly adequate most of the time.
> Unfortunately, even with these options, this is an area that vim seems to fall down a little bit on. Other text editors I've used have the capability to soft wrap at user defined columns, while also matching the indent of the first line with the soft wrapped lines.
Given Vim's power and versatility shouldn't this be remediable?
lith
Well, guess I'm not so old after all. But still old.
Regards,
Tom
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:43 AM, Benjamin R. Haskell wrote:
>> Unfortunately, even with these options, this is an area that vim seems to fall down a little bit on. Other text editors I've used have the capability to soft wrap at user defined columns, while also matching the indent of the first line with the soft wrapped lines.
>
> Maybe patch #9 on the Vim Patches page (Correctly indent wrapped lines) would do what you're looking for?
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/web/vim-patches
>
> No idea of its current status.
Thanks, Benjamin. That's available only if you compile Vim yourself. Might be something to consider after I've gotten minimally comfortable with Vim.
Anthony Campbell
>
I'd definitely suggest having a look at LyX, if you haven't done so
already. It's described as a document processor, not a word processor.
You can do all this stuff in Latex, and I did in the past, but LyX makes
it easier and quicker.
From the blurb:
"LyX is for people who want their writing to look great, right out of
the box. No more endless tinkering with formatting details, “finger
painting” font attributes or futzing around with page boundaries. You
just write. On screen, LyX looks like any word processor; its printed
output — or richly cross-referenced PDF, just as readily produced —
looks like nothing else."
I think LyX is brilliant, but I still like to write first in Vim and
import it into Lyx when it's more or less as I want it.
Tim Chase
> 1. Text objects. Things like "cap" (change a paragraph) and
> "dis" (delete a sentence) would be amazing for writing prose.
As a matter of fact, almost *all* my usage of the "is" and "as"
text objects are used when editing prose. They don't serve much
purpose when I'm writing code :)
But text objects are a seriously powerful advantage Vim offers --
I regularly tire in other editors of "move around to the
beginning of the text-object, hold down <shift> while I move
around to the end of the text-object" when in Vim it would just
be a quick text-object manipulation.
-tim
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:43 AM, Vera, Pedro L. wrote:
> Eric Weir [eew...@bellsouth.net] wrote:
>
>> A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?]
>
> It's not an issue. Latex will typeset your document according to its (Latex's) own format and syntax structures. In case you want to pursue this further, here's a site I found extremely helpful at the beginning of my latex adventure, and I still consult it often for reminders/tips/ etc.
>
> http://www.andy-roberts.net/misc/latex/
>
> I would suggest doing the small sample document listed in the "absolute begginer's" section listed in the website and use vim to create the document. The instructions will walk you through generating your document in pdf format. By the way, you will have to install Latex in your system. I think you mentioned you are running MacOS, in which case this website will be useful
>
> http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started
Thanks again, Pedro. I've bookmarked the links.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:54 AM, lith wrote:
> Usually people are worried about vi(m) being old. :-)
Maybe Vim is old like me -- in some ways, in some [important] ways not.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:02 PM, Anthony Campbell wrote:
> I'd definitely suggest having a look at LyX, if you haven't done so
> already. It's described as a document processor, not a word processor.
> You can do all this stuff in Latex, and I did in the past, but LyX makes
> it easier and quicker.
Thanks again, Anthony. And I have checked it out. It does look interesting.
> I think LyX is brilliant, but I still like to write first in Vim and
> import it into Lyx when it's more or less as I want it.
That's the way I'd want to go -- and as I've said, the way I worked between MaxThink and word processors for a long time.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:45 AM, Tim Chase wrote:
> I regularly tire in other editors of "move around to the beginning of the text-object, hold down <shift> while I move around to the end of the text-object"
Amen!
Tim Gray
>That's the way I'd want to go -- and as I've said, the way I worked between
>MaxThink and word processors for a long time.
Well if that's the way you want to go, you could also do straight Latex from
Vim. That works very well for many types of documents. It's what I do.
There's a very nice Latex package for Mac as well.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:39 AM, Boyko Bantchev wrote:
> You can compose plain text in Vim so that each paragraph is a single `physical' line (Vim will still form as many screen lines as needed to fit the text in). When you are finished, Word (or whatever so called word processor) will take care of formatting (word-wrapping, hyphenation etc.) automatically, as it will see each line-paragraph as a true paragraph.
Thanks, Boyko. That's all I would need! It's the way I worked between MaxThink and various word processors for over 20 years.
Tim Chase
> On Apr 7, 2011, at 10:20 PM, Tim Chase wrote:
>> http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html
>
> Thanks, Tim. The note on this link recommends O'Reilly's book
> on Vi and when you go to the O'Reilly pages linked in it their
> are rave comments about the book.
A slightly biased link, as the "Ask Tim" column is asking Tim
O'Reilly, for whom O'Reilly is named. :)
> Is this the book for a totally new *Vim* user of my background
> with the use I've indicated? Doesn't O'Reilly have a book
> directly on Vim?
O'Reilly has both "Learning Vi and Vim" and "Vi and Vim Editors
Pocket Reference". Additionally, New Riders put out Steve
Oualline's "Vi IMproved" though it's dated 2001 which doesn't
touch newer advances in Vim. While I've skimmed all 3 titles,
I'd say it depends on how you learn. I threw myself into
learning Vim, restricting myself to Vim for all my text-editing.
I achieved functional parity to my old editors' level of
comfort (QEdit and the Turbo Pascal IDE for DOS, various IDE's in
Win32, and Nano/Pico on *nix) within 2-3 weeks. And after a
month, the productivity gains from using Vim blew away the other
editors so it's hard to go back.
The biggest skill to have when learning Vim is to reflect on what
your doing to the point where you see yourself repeating certain
actions and then asking (yourself, the help, the mailing list, a
book, a Vim wiki, etc.) how you can improve. I find that just
asking questions here on the list (and lurking to see other folks
asking/answering questions) advanced me farther than any book
would have.
And lastly, I'll plug vimgolf.com if you want to stretch yourself. :)
-tim
Grahame Blackwood
> On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 05:02 PM, Anthony Campbell <a...@acampbell.org.uk> wrote:
>
> On 08 Apr 2011, Eric Weir wrote:
>>
>> On Apr 8, 2011, at 4:30 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote:
>>
>> > I dislike word processors. (I've been forced to use OpenOffice for one
>> > particular purpose recently and hate it.) I think that the process of
>> > generating prose should be separate from producing print-ready copy. So
>> > I do all my composing in Vim, which allows me to change things easily as
>> > much as I like. If I want it to look nice I then import it into LyX,
>> > which gives me publishable files. For short things like letters, I have
>> > made latex templates which I read into vim.
>>
>> Thanks, Anthony. I did all my writing from the early '80s till just a couple years ago on MaxThink, the legendary outlining program, which had absolutely no formatting capabilities. I totally buy the developer's [Neil Larson] philosophy for that application. The emphasis was on supporting thinking, and keeping things that distract you from thinking out of the way. MaxThink was/is a DOS application. Totally command-driven. An attempt at a version with a GUI was a complete flop.
>>
>> Even today, having finally reluctantly moved on from MaxThink, I keep formatting to a bare minimum -- bolding titles and headings, italicizing subheadings, occasionally footnoting -- and apply it only when sharing long documents with others.
>>
>> Yeah, I think I hate OpenOffice Writer as much as Word.
>>
>
> I'd definitely suggest having a look at LyX, if you haven't done so
> already. It's described as a document processor, not a word processor.
> You can do all this stuff in Latex, and I did in the past, but LyX makes
> it easier and quicker.
>
> From the blurb:
> "LyX is for people who want their writing to look great, right out of
> the box. No more endless tinkering with formatting details, “finger
> painting” font attributes or futzing around with page boundaries. You
> just write. On screen, LyX looks like any word processor; its printed
> output — or richly cross-referenced PDF, just as readily produced —
> looks like nothing else."
>
> I think LyX is brilliant, but I still like to write first in Vim and
> import it into Lyx when it's more or less as I want it.
>
> Anthony
I am not a programmer but do most of my written work with Vim, aided and
abetted by other software to produce good looking documents, even if
they are only reports or letters.
For reports and longer texts, my use is similar to Anthony's with the
variation that I use VimOutliner for organising my text first, then
import it into Lyx with the otl2lyx.awk script (part of the VimOutliner
package) to preserve the structure of my outline. After that, when I
need to further edit the text in the Lyx document, I often do so by
opening the file with Vim and edit body text only (don't want to corrupt
the Lyx document) and making certain that I don't hit the CR while doing
so. Then I save the file and in Lyx I Reload it and compile the document
as needed.
For letters, I use VimLatex.
I also use Vim for emails with vmail. It is easier for me than Mutt and more
'Vimmy'.
Cheers
G
Tony Mechelynck
Don't let age worry you. I've turned 60 in January, an age one of my
grandparents never reached, and yet one of my goals in life is to die
young -- as late as possible.
To me, one of the exciting things about Vim is that although you can get
rather comfortable with it in a short time -- after completing the
vimtutor sequence, say -- there are always new things to learn about it,
and even if someday I get to know all the contents of the present help
on the tips of my fingers, and what all that means and how to apply it,
by that time some additional exciting new features will have been added,
so it never becomes "something old and dull". For instance everything in
version7.txt was added since I first became seriously interested in Vim,
and what a thrill it was when each one of these new features appeared!
Best regards,
Tony.
--
hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict:
48. You have a tatoo that says "This body best viewed with Netscape 3.1
or higher."
Tony Mechelynck
Compiling Vim is not really hard, and I've written a couple of how-to
pages about it; but by all means get comfortable with Vim as an editor
first, and then later on (especially if you aren't on Windows, because
on Windows there are excellent distributions published pre-compiled and
regularly updated by the Cream project) you'll know better if it's worth
your while to grab the latest of the greatest (both bug fixes and new
enhancements) by compiling Vim yourself before (sometimes long before)
your software wholesaler comes around to it.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but
television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom
and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that
offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath.
-- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
Do"
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 1:39 PM, Tim Chase wrote:
> The biggest skill to have when learning Vim is to reflect on what your doing to the point where you see yourself repeating certain actions and then asking (yourself, the help, the mailing list, a book, a Vim wiki, etc.) how you can improve....
>
> And lastly, I'll plug vimgolf.com if you want to stretch yourself. :)
A *very* different approach to editing. It will be a stretch initially, but I've had experience related to it -- though with less powerful apps -- and it's appealing.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
> Compiling Vim is not really hard, and I've written a couple of how-to pages about it; but by all means get comfortable with Vim as an editor first, and then later on (especially if you aren't on Windows, because on Windows there are excellent distributions published pre-compiled and regularly updated by the Cream project) you'll know better if it's worth your while to grab the latest of the greatest (both bug fixes and new enhancements) by compiling Vim yourself before (sometimes long before) your software wholesaler comes around to it.
Thanks, Tony. Yes, first things first.
Eric Weir
On Apr 8, 2011, at 5:04 PM, Grahame Blackwood wrote:
> I am not a programmer but do most of my written work with Vim, aided and
> abetted by other software to produce good looking documents, even if
> they are only reports or letters.
>
> For reports and longer texts, my use is similar to Anthony's with the
> variation that I use VimOutliner for organising my text first, then
> import it into Lyx with the otl2lyx.awk script (part of the VimOutliner
> package) to preserve the structure of my outline. After that, when I
> need to further edit the text in the Lyx document, I often do so by
> opening the file with Vim and edit body text only (don't want to corrupt
> the Lyx document) and making certain that I don't hit the CR while doing
> so. Then I save the file and in Lyx I Reload it and compile the document
> as needed.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Grahame.
John Little
> In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old.
learning to use a decent text editor. Young people get spoon-fed with
brain-dead ways of doing things very early and often are very
reluctant to unlearn those ways, especially generation Y. Hats off to
those that do.
Regards, John
Eric Weir
Well, I found time to work through the vim tutor exercise. Pretty basic. Not sure I remember what I learned -- I liked that it said don't try to memorize, to learn by doing -- and in a fog about some things I'm clear about, e.g., how to open a file, how to find out where a file is being saved, how to save a file to a specific folder, etc., and many, many more I'm not. It will come.
Haven't the faintest idea how to use the manual, i.e., how to open the files listed in the table of contents. I think I need to get one of the books.
Something I learned on one of the websites: Vim comes installed on Macs.
Enough for today. Thanks for all the encouragement and guidance.
Eric Weir
I have no experience of generation Y, that I know of anyway. From the beginning, I've been pretty stubborn about getting computers and applications to work in ways that make sense for me. Maybe I'm younger than them?
Tim Chase
> Well, I found time to work through the vim tutor exercise.
> Pretty basic. Not sure I remember what I learned -- I liked
> that it said don't try to memorize, to learn by doing
Nothing like practice to burn it in :) As mentioned in a
previous email, I forced myself to use nothing but Vim for a
month and by the end of it, there was no going back. The things
I used regularly became natural; the things I didn't use
regularly got filed away in the "vim can do that if I ever need
it" part of my brain without memorizing the specifics.
> Haven't the faintest idea how to use the manual, i.e., how to
> open the files listed in the table of contents. I think I need
> to get one of the books.
If you just type
:help
the top of the help-page it pulls up gives you tips on navigating
the help. Additionally, you can read
:help :helpgrep
:help quickfix
for searching through the help. Knowing regular-expressions
helps a LOT.
-tim
(apologies if this is a dupe...weird SMTP/IMAP error)
Ben Fritz
On Apr 8, 8:43 pm, Eric Weir <eew...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> Haven't the faintest idea how to use the manual, i.e., how to open the files listed in the table of contents. I think I need to get one of the books.
>
Tony Mechelynck
>
> On Apr 8, 2011, at 8:50 PM, John Little wrote:
>
>> On Apr 9, 3:08 am, Eric Weir<eew...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>> In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old.
>>
>> IMO, and IME, it's the opposite: being young is a handicap for
>> learning to use a decent text editor. Young people get spoon-fed with
>> brain-dead ways of doing things very early and often are very
>> reluctant to unlearn those ways, especially generation Y. Hats off to
>> those that do.
>
> I have no experience of generation Y, that I know of anyway. From the beginning, I've been pretty stubborn about getting computers and applications to work in ways that make sense for me. Maybe I'm younger than them?
Or maybe they are metaphorically still not out of kindergarten. A
grown-up is expected to be able to learn and understand things that pass
way over the head of mere babies.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Eric Weir
> Decatur, GA USA
> eew...@bellsouth.net
>
>
>
>
Best regards,
Tony.
--
H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L.
Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude.
-- Maxwell Bodenheim
Tony Mechelynck
There is also, as I said before, "help on using help", obtained by typing
:help helphelp.txt
followed by Enter, in a Vim running in Normal mode.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy
it today you can do it again tomorrow.
Anthony Campbell
>
> My preference, in my current state of ignorance, anyway, would be to never insert hard line breaks. I do have to share most of my writing with people who don't know anything but Word. So when ready for sharing I would import into another application for formatting. Apple's TextEdit is perfectly adequate most of the time.
When I have to import a Vim file into OOWriter (Libreoffice as it now
is) I use this command, kindly supplied by Tim Chase in an earlier
thread (thanks, Tim):
:g/\%^\|\n\@<=\s*\n/,/\n\n\|\%$/j
This converts each paragraph into a continuous line. It also removes the
spaces between the paragraphs. You want that if you are going to use
indented paragraphs in OOWriter, but if you want block paragraphs
(spaces between paragraphs, no indents) you need to run a further
command to reinsert the spaces:
:%s/$/\r
NB. The first line usually gives an error message : "E16 invalid range",
but I find I can ignore this without any ill-effects.
lith
My preference, in my current state of ignorance, anyway, would be to never insert hard line breaks. I do have to share most of my writing with people who don't know anything but Word. So when ready for sharing I would import into another application for formatting. Apple's TextEdit is perfectly adequate most of the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language
Regards,
Tom
Erik Christiansen
>
> Well, I found time to work through the vim tutor exercise. Pretty
> basic. Not sure I remember what I learned -- I liked that it said
> don't try to memorize, to learn by doing -- and in a fog about some
> things I'm clear about, e.g., how to open a file, how to find out
> where a file is being saved, how to save a file to a specific folder,
> etc., and many, many more I'm not. It will come.
Dunno if it suits your learning style, but many years ago I started
keeping (very brief) notes of the most immediately useful stuff, using
vim. The act of condensing a concept, and writing it down, together with
the relevant commands, help with memory. Simply capitalising keywords
in the file allows rapid access to the desired information, in vim, when
memory fails. (Might be useful if you're one who learns a good deal more
than is needed to get by up till lunchtime today.)
Being customised, the personal help is often a quicker memory backup
than the generalised vim help. (OK, only a small part of my accumulated
15k lines relate to vim, but it's all unix stuff, so I can find hard-won
vim, awk, bash, and debugging experience in one place. It only has what
I have a use for, and it only fills my memory holes, but nothing else
does that better.)
While I did learn vim while earning a living as a programmer, I use it
for everything, including typing this post. To have mutt use vim, just
add the line:
set editor=vim
to ~/.muttrc. (Using vim, naturally.)
And when emails (or even a single word in a document) need to be in e.g.
Danish or German, digraphs are easily learnt by one's fingers. ( :help
:digraphs ) ( :dig )
I have vim set up so that ^D invokes Danish spell checking, and ^E does
English, but that's just what suits this vimmer. (I only turn it on at
completion of the document.)
So yes, vim is well suited to (even multilingual) non-program text
editing.
Personally, I'd rather learn one interface, learn it well, and use it
everywhere. (One shell, one editor, one text processing language, one
OS, and one distro thereof. (Oh, alright, I don't use the vi-style line
editing interface for the bash commandline. Yet. ;)
At 57, I've had to enable two-coloured cursor, to distinguish insert
mode. That wasn't necessary in the past. I've also made up/down arrows
exit insert mode (to save a keystroke most times), while staying in it
for left & right.
Erik
--
I have long felt that most computers today do not use electricity.
They instead seem to be powered by the "pumping" motion of the mouse!
- William Shotts, Jr. on http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.ph
Eric Weir
Thanks, Ben. This should help.
Eric Weir
On Apr 9, 2011, at 2:53 AM, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
> There is also, as I said before, "help on using help", obtained by typing
>
> :help helphelp.txt
Thanks for the reminder, Tony.
Eric Weir
On Apr 9, 2011, at 4:20 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote:
> When I have to import a Vim file into OOWriter (Libreoffice as it now
> is) I use this command, kindly supplied by Tim Chase in an earlier
> thread (thanks, Tim):
>
> :g/\%^\|\n\@<=\s*\n/,/\n\n\|\%$/j
>
> This converts each paragraph into a continuous line. It also removes the
> spaces between the paragraphs. You want that if you are going to use
> indented paragraphs in OOWriter, but if you want block paragraphs
> (spaces between paragraphs, no indents) you need to run a further
> command to reinsert the spaces:
>
> :%s/$/\r
Thanks, Tony. I've flagged this for future reference.
Eric Weir
HTML actually is a great format for exchange documents. See here for some tools that could prove useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language
Eric Weir
On Apr 9, 2011, at 6:06 AM, Erik Christiansen wrote:
> Dunno if it suits your learning style, but many years ago I started
> keeping (very brief) notes of the most immediately useful stuff, using
> vim. The act of condensing a concept, and writing it down, together with
> the relevant commands, help with memory. Simply capitalising keywords
> in the file allows rapid access to the desired information, in vim, when
> memory fails. (Might be useful if you're one who learns a good deal more
> than is needed to get by up till lunchtime today.)
It suits my learning style perfectly, Erik. Also goes well with a suggestion made by an earlier respondent: Create your own cheat sheet. Don't use the ready-made ones that are widely available.
AK
>
> I've downloaded and installed a copy of MacVim. I've peeked at a few of the help topics. [I'd like to run the tutorial, but haven't figured out how to do that, yet.] I'm not a programmer. Far from it. I'm intrigued for a least a couple reasons, the main one being the fact that Vim is command-driven, that everything's done from the keyboard. [My very first experience with an "editor" was with Wordstar on CPM, and I've missed doing everything from the keyboard ever since.] The outliner plugins appeal to me as well. [I was a long-time devote of MaxThink, running it in a DOS Window after moving to Windows from DOS, and in DOSBox under Linux and now on a Mac.] And so does the possibility of using it as a file manager as well as editor.
>
> Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of?
>
> Thanks,
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Eric Weir
> Decatur, GA USA
> eew...@bellsouth.net
I am a programmer but I do use Vim for anything and everything, emails,
authoring documentation, outlines, todo lists, you name it.
The way I think about this is.. it does have quite a learning curve and
even though others will disagree, my feeling is that the documentation
and help system are very, very far from ideal for a new user (although
both are near perfect as a reference for dyed-in-the-wool user);
however, it all makes sense if you intend to do a lot of text editing
over the next 20+ years. Programming is becoming more available to
non-programmers and that's something to keep in mind if not for tomorrow
then for the day after tomorrow (possibility of catastrophic climate
change notwithstanding).
I also want to add that if I were using vim mainly for writing text,
there's one plugin I would find particularly enticing: AutoCompletePopup
(you can search for it on google or vim.org). It completes the words for
you automatically as you type, and shows you a menu where you can use
ctrl-n/p shorcuts to select the match. Some may find it annoying but
once I got used to it I feel like it does 30% of the work for me and it
doesn't require remembering any vim commands, so I think it's a really
useful and "sexy" plugin for new users especially.
-Rainyday
>
>
>
>
eNG1Ne
is easiest with a spreadsheet, but once that's done it's over to vim
to sort it all out
Then comes drafting translations or new content for docs - using vim
on a portable and writing mml to be finished with FrameMaker once I
get home to the desktop. (mml is also the secret weapon for getting
clean content out of certain proprietary word-processor formats)
Thirdly, tagging plain-text for an .fb2 e-book reader - remembering,
gratefully, the colleague who taught me about regex many years ago
My take on the learning curve and the documentation? it's a bit tricky
to learn vim _and_ editing at the same time, but if you come to vim
because you know what you want to do and you're looking for a
competent tool to do it ... my editor of choice. Quibbles? can't find a
"run to end of file" for macros; and sometimes have problems with
accented characters when I move a file between platforms, though
that's not vim's fault.
Niels Grundtvig Nielsen
You know what you're talking about - I can help you say it
www.kbss27.be
Tim Chase
> Quibbles? can't find a "run to end of file" for macros
Would
:,$norm @a
work for you? (obviously assuming that your macro was recorded
into register "a") Alternatively, if your macro processes more
than one line at a time, you could tweak it to
:,$g/pattern identifying start/norm @a
where "pattern identifying start" finds the lines on which the
macro should be run.
Lastly, I think if Vim encounters an error in macro-execution
(such as trying to move past the EOF), it stops not only the
macro in process but any subsequent runs, so you can issue some
ridiculous number of repetitions as your count as long as it
exceeds the number in the file:
999@a
(it might help to temporarily set 'nowrapscan' if your "go to the
next place to operate" is a search)
Hope that helps,
-tim
Steve
Very interresting thread, but :
Le 09-04-2011, à 08:53:30 +0200, Tony Mechelynck (antoine.m...@gmail.com) a écrit :
> There is also, as I said before, "help on using help", obtained by typing
>
> :help helphelp.txt
"Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt" (my translation from French).
All the other online help seems available.
I'm running Debian stable with :
dpkg -l vim* | awk '{print $1"\t"$2"\t"$3}'
ii vim 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-addon-manager 0.4.3
ii vim-common 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-doc 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
un vim-gnome <néant>
ii vim-gtk 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-gui-common 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-latexsuite 20100129-2
un vim-lesstif <néant>
un vim-nox <néant>
un vim-perl <néant>
un vim-python <néant>
un vim-ruby <néant>
ii vim-runtime 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-scripts 20091011
un vim-tcl <néant>
ii vim-tiny 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-vimoutliner 0.3.4+pristine-9
un vimoutliner <néant>
What am I missing?
PS: sorry to highjack this thread, but I felt it could be usefull to
others following it.
Thanks,
steve
Christian Brabandt
> Hi there,
>
> Very interresting thread, but�:
>
> (antoine.m...@gmail.com) a �crit :
>
>> There is also, as I said before, "help on using help", obtained by
>> typing
>>
>> :help helphelp.txt
>
> "Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt" (my translation from French).
>
> All the other online help seems available.
>
> I'm running Debian stable with�:
>
> dpkg -l vim* | awk '{print $1"\t"$2"\t"$3}'
>
> ii vim 2�:7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> ii vim-addon-manager 0.4.3
> ii vim-common 2�:7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> ii vim-doc 2�:7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> ii vim-gtk 2�:7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> ii vim-gui-common 2�:7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> ii vim-latexsuite 20100129-2
> un vim-nox <n�ant>
> un vim-perl <n�ant>
> un vim-python <n�ant>
> un vim-ruby <n�ant>
> ii vim-runtime 2�:7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> ii vim-scripts 20091011
> ii vim-tiny 2�:7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> ii vim-vimoutliner 0.3.4+pristine-9
>
>
> What am I missing?
I think helphelp.txt appeared with the release of vim 7.3
regards,
Christian
Dotan Cohen
> I use vim for everything. And I have vim-bindings in *every* application
> that I
> use.
> Here's my setup:
>
> Browser: Firefox with pentadactyl [6]
> Writing Mail: mutt, with editor set to vim
>
>
You might want to look at Vimerator for Firefox and Muttator for
Thunderbird. Actually, it was from Vimperator that I got into VIM.
--
Dotan Cohen
Steve
> >> There is also, as I said before, "help on using help", obtained by
> >> typing
> >>
> >> :help helphelp.txt
> >
> > "Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt" (my translation from French).
> >
> > All the other online help seems available.
> >
> > I'm running Debian stable with :
> >
> > dpkg -l vim* | awk '{print $1"\t"$2"\t"$3}'
> >
> > ii vim 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
> >
> > What am I missing?
>
> I think helphelp.txt appeared with the release of vim 7.3
Ok, thanks Christian.
Eric Weir
On Apr 10, 2011, at 8:55 PM, AK wrote:
> The way I think about this is.. it does have quite a learning curve and
> even though others will disagree, my feeling is that the documentation
> and help system are very, very far from ideal for a new user (although
> both are near perfect as a reference for dyed-in-the-wool user);
> however, it all makes sense if you intend to do a lot of text editing
> over the next 20+ years. Programming is becoming more available to
> non-programmers and that's something to keep in mind if not for tomorrow
> then for the day after tomorrow (possibility of catastrophic climate
> change notwithstanding).
Thanks. Yes, I can see that the documentation -- help, manual, how-tos -- are excellent. But I agree with you that even with it its still pretty baffling for a new user, especially a nonprogrammer. In spite of all the helpful suggestions in response to my responses here, all my reading on various vim-related websites, and my scanning of the Oalline book, it wasn't until yesterday that I figured out how to open the manual pages. And even then it came as a result of a guess at something that might work.
But, I don't want to get into complaining. Clearly, Vim is an outstanding editor and the documentation is outstanding as well. It's just that all that power carries with it a good measure of complexity. It takes time.
Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to drop all my current applications and go at Vim whole-hog and exclusively. I wish it were so. Two applications are especially hard to imagine leaving behind, even temporarily: [1] An editor/documents manager developed for writers, especially writers working on large projects, called Scrivener. [2] Apple Mail. None of the email clients I've experienced can hold a candle to Eudora as far as I'm concerned, but I am otherwise very satisfied with Mail.
[There is one problem, one that's serious enough to make me wonder about other possibilities: Frequent intermittent hang-ups in sending mail. Fiddling with the outgoing server settings in random ways, combined with shutting Mail down and restarting it and rebooting the system, eventually gets it going.
But there really is no way telling what will work. A particular setting will stop working. I find another that works, then it stops. I go back to the first one, and the mail starts going out.
Very frustrating. And judging from the Apple forums, I'm not alone in experiencing this problem. Mutt is mentioned frequently here. I went looking for it, but apparently it's not available for Macs.]
> I also want to add that if I were using vim mainly for writing text,
> there's one plugin I would find particularly enticing: AutoCompletePopup
> (you can search for it on google or vim.org). It completes the words for
> you automatically as you type, and shows you a menu where you can use
> ctrl-n/p shorcuts to select the match. Some may find it annoying but
> once I got used to it I feel like it does 30% of the work for me and it
> doesn't require remembering any vim commands, so I think it's a really
> useful and "sexy" plugin for new users especially.
I'll keep it in mind, though I should say that I found autocompletion on OpenOffice really irritating.
Eric Weir
On Apr 11, 2011, at 2:11 AM, eNG1Ne wrote:
> My take on the learning curve and the documentation? it's a bit tricky
> to learn vim _and_ editing at the same time, but if you come to vim
> because you know what you want to do and you're looking for a
> competent tool to do it ... my editor of choice.
Thanks. As I just said in my last response on this thread, I really do wish I could drop everything else and go Vim exclusively. Based on previous experience, I know I'd get to a minimally comfortable working level fairly quickly. [Barely skimming the surface of what Vim has to offer.] Unfortunately I can't do that. But I intend to stick with it, and to use it as much as possible.
Recently, a response to a request for help here took the form of a string of characters, maybe ten of them, about an inch long, yet the solution was not a simple one. I like that.
Tony Mechelynck
> Hi there,
>
> Very interresting thread, but :
>
>
>> There is also, as I said before, "help on using help", obtained by typing
>>
>> :help helphelp.txt
>
> "Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt" (my translation from French).
>
> All the other online help seems available.
Try
:help helphelp
and if even that doesn't work (meaning the French help is more than 6
months out of date)
:help helphelp@en
HTH,
Tony.
--
Really heard in court in the U.S.A.:
Q.: Are you qualified to take a urine sample?
A.: Are you qualified to ask this question?
Tony Mechelynck
> On 11/04/11 15:46, Steve wrote:
>> Hi there,
>>
>> Very interresting thread, but :
>>
>> Le 09-04-2011, � 08:53:30 +0200, Tony Mechelynck
>> (antoine.m...@gmail.com) a �crit :
>>
>>> There is also, as I said before, "help on using help", obtained by
>>> typing
>>>
>>> :help helphelp.txt
>>
>> "Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt" (my translation from French).
>>
>> All the other online help seems available.
> [...]
>
> Try
>
> :help helphelp
>
> and if even that doesn't work (meaning the French help is more than 6
> months out of date)
>
> :help helphelp@en
>
>
>
> HTH,
> Tony.
Sorry, I hadn't noticed you are still on Vim 7.2.
In that case I recommend to upgrade. See
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_the_Vim_source_with_Mercurial
http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compunix.htm
about how to get the latest source and compile it. By default, your new
executable will install in /usr/local/bin which should be earlier in the
$PATH than the Vim executable from Debian.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
add ten percent.
Ben Fritz
On Apr 11, 6:42 am, Tim Chase <v...@tim.thechases.com> wrote:
> Lastly, I think if Vim encounters an error in macro-execution
> (such as trying to move past the EOF), it stops not only the
> macro in process but any subsequent runs, so you can issue some
> ridiculous number of repetitions as your count as long as it
> exceeds the number in the file:
>
> 999@a
>
An alternate approach which takes advantage of the same feature is
making a macro which calls itself:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Record_a_recursive_macro
Adam Monsen
> Hope to find some free time in the next few days just to mess
> around with it -- actually, to do the tutorial -- and maybe get
> over the initial hump of total bafflement.
Based on your participation on this list, looks like you've got
plenty of free time to learn Vim. :)
Vim is an awesome tool for authors. By "authors" I mean, for
instance, authors of published works, like ebooks, paper books, and
magazines published and sold at bookstores. But I consider
programmers authors too. Code makes computers do things, but that's
almost a side effect. The most important purpose of code is
communicating with other programmers (including your future self).
Vim helps authors focus on content!
+1 to the many suggestions for using Vim to edit plain text or
markup, then sending the text off to another tool for processing.
One markup I like is AsciiDoc ( http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/).
AsciiDoc uses a simple markup which can be processed in different
ways depending on the desired result. You can make Web pages,
beautiful ebooks, and professional-looking papers from the same (or
very similar) source text. You can send off the plain text to
publishers since they'll probably want to do their own layout
anyway. AsciiDoc is easier to learn than LaTeX.
Markups are generally easy to learn. If you're spending lots of time
with the formatting and layout commands of a particular markup, you
probably want something else that supports more absolute or visual
layouts (like Inkscape or LibreOffice).
I always prefer markup for the same reason I like Vim: it helps me
focus on content over everything else.
Do you play a musical instrument? Think of vimtutor like learning a
very easy song on the piano. The first time you sit down, it takes a
few hours to even hit the right notes. After sleeping on it for a
night, maybe you can play all the notes, and maybe even on tempo. By
the third day, you could even teach someone else the song. Once Vim
gets into your muscle memory, productivity skyrockets.
This also makes me think that there's a book or lecture waiting to
be written: "Vim for Non-Programmers" or "Vim for Authors".
Hmm, searching google for "vim for writers" does reveal a few hits
along these lines:
* http://therandymon.com/woodnotes/vim-for-writers/vimforwriters.html
* http://therandymon.com/content/view/189/98/
* http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/56506
Adam Monsen
> Simply capitalising keywords in the file allows rapid access to the
> desired information
How does that work? Will you share an example?
Also, will you share your .vimrc?
AK
I think Erik simply meant searching for Mykey will skip mykey and
thisismykey matches. -Rainyday
Steve
Thanks for your answer.
> Sorry, I hadn't noticed you are still on Vim 7.2.
No problem.
> In that case I recommend to upgrade. See
>
> http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_the_Vim_source_with_Mercurial
> http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compunix.htm
>
> about how to get the latest source and compile it. By default, your
> new executable will install in /usr/local/bin which should be
> earlier in the $PATH than the Vim executable from Debian.
Well, to be honest, I don't feel like compiling from source. I like the
stability of Debian stable and it's easiness to update when needed. And
version 7.2 is enough for my own work. I just wanted to see what
:h helphelp.txt
was saying. By the way, I installed the latest version on a windows
machine and had a look; nothing really new for me.
Have a nice day,
Steve
Tony Mechelynck
> Hi Tony,
>
> Thanks for your answer.
>
>
>> Sorry, I hadn't noticed you are still on Vim 7.2.
>
> No problem.
>
>> In that case I recommend to upgrade. See
>>
>> http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_the_Vim_source_with_Mercurial
>> http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compunix.htm
>>
>> about how to get the latest source and compile it. By default, your
>> new executable will install in /usr/local/bin which should be
>> earlier in the $PATH than the Vim executable from Debian.
>
> Well, to be honest, I don't feel like compiling from source. I like the
> stability of Debian stable and it's easiness to update when needed. And
> version 7.2 is enough for my own work. I just wanted to see what
>
> :h helphelp.txt
There is a copy of the help online, but alas, it is still the Vim 7.2
version of the help. :-(
>
> was saying. By the way, I installed the latest version on a windows
> machine and had a look; nothing really new for me.
>
> Have a nice day,
> Steve
>
Best regards,
Tony.
--
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any
use to oneself.
-- Oscar Wilde
Christian Brabandt
>> :h helphelp.txt
>
> There is a copy of the help online, but alas, it is still the Vim 7.2
> version of the help. :-(
http://vimhelp.appspot.com/helphelp.txt.html
regards,
Christian
Steve
Thanks guys, you were really not obliged ;-)
I'm currently reading and practicing the vimtutor (which I did years
ago), and it's funny to see what (bad) habits I picked up. For instance,
to go to the first line of a file, I type(d):
:1
forgetting that gg does the same thing. Another example is the
replacement of caracters. I used to put the cursor right after the wrong
caracter, then go in insert mode, then hit the RETURN key, and finally
type the right caracter. A long way to do such a imple thing. Vim
suggest to just hit r then the correct caracter, and that's it. And so
on for the example. The only thing with which I have problem is the
movement keys, hjkl. I'm so used to the arrow keys that I get cramps in
my fingers when putting them on those hjkl keys (and I'm not that
old :-)).
Thnaks for all the nice help.
Have a nice day,
Steve
PS: I use vim for simple programming (some php, bash, python) but also
for email editing, LaTeX, and so forth. I just cannot imagine using
anything else. Ah yes, I sometimes use nano to copy paste code in a new
file. With vim, the whole code formatting is not kept. For instance, I
get something like this:
for
i
in
a b c d e f
do
echo $i
done
So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But
I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it
yet. If you have any ideas, please share.
Erik Christiansen
Yes, spot on, but a little more structure helps. To still allow use of
"Mykey" at the start of a sentence, I mostly use fullcaps and colons for
search keys. e.g. section headings:
VIM:--------------------------------------------------------------------
For subsections, I prefer mixed case headings, so either add a tag at
right, or search for "^Cursor" or "Cursor:" subheadings:
Cursor: # In .vimrc: CURSOR:
:let loaded_matchparen = 1 " Clobber confusing red & blue crap
" on ([{}]).
:NoMatchParen # From within vim.
MODE-INDICATING BICOLOUR CURSOR:
"Appearance: (Insert_Mode == Green, Normal_Mode == Red)
if &term =~ "xterm"
let &t_SI = "\<Esc>]12;green\x7"
let &t_EI = "\<Esc>]12;red\x7"
endif
-------------------
Embedded search tags also harmlessly hang about on the right:
^] Jump to function/macro under cursor # With ctags CTAGS
:ts Tag select, from multiple tag matches.
g] ditto DEFINITION
^T An easy way back.
So whether I think of ctags, or "I want the function definition", I have
a search key to take me there immediately. (The file has all my unix
notes, and runs to 15,000 lines. With everything in one file, there's
only one place to look, and whether vim or awk offers a solution is just
"How". I'm looking for "What" could solve my problem.)
I haven't gone to the extent of tweaking .vimrc, since these dead simple
tags have sufficed for over 15 years now, providing a shortcut to stuff
I think I might need again, and took too long to find the first time.
Erik
--
manual, n.:
A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item.
One is on the shelf; someone has the others.
The information you need is in the others. -- Ray Simard
Magnus Woldrich
>I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it
>yet. If you have any ideas, please share.
:set paste
:h paste
--
Magnus Woldrich
m...@japh.se
http://japh.se
Steve
> >So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But
> >I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it
> >yet. If you have any ideas, please share.
>
> :set paste
> :h paste
Brilliant! So simple.
apt-get purge nano
Thanks