Vimcasts

These notes are based on VimCasts

Whitespace

1. Show invisibles

• Add keybinding to toggle between showing visible and non-visible characters

  " Shortcut to rapidly toggle `set list`
  nmap <leader>l :set list!<CR>
  

• To change to use more standard keybindings

  " Use the same symbols as TextMate for tabstops and EOLs
  set listchars=tab:▸\ ,eol:¬
  

• Can update colour schemes to make these more discreet

Screencast Link

2. Tabs and Spaces

• Tabstop Specifies the width of a tab character
• Expandtab When enabled, uses spaces instead of tabs
• Softtabstop Fine tunes the amount of whitespace to be inserted

• Shiftwidth the amount of whitespace to insert or remove using the indentation commands

• Using spaces ensure that softtabstop == shiftwidth

3. Whitespace preferences and filetypes

• Can change whitespace settings for a particular filetype using autocmd FileType <filename>.

• For example, make requires tabs to indent instead of spaces so can use autocmd FileType make setlocal ts=8 sts=8 sw=8 noexpandtab

• autocmd FileType javascript <command> will execute the command whenever the filetype changes to javascript

• setlocal ensures that whatever changes are only made to the open buffer and not globally.

• To enable filetype detection add filetype on to the .vimrc file.

• In the .vimrc can use if has("autocmd") so that on a vim without autocmd support, the FileType commands will be skipped

• To treat a specific filetype as another use the setfiletype command. For example, autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *.rss setfiletype xml

5. Indentation Commands

• Use the angle bracket keys to indent.
• In normal mode use >> to indent the current line. Prepend this with a count to indent a number of lines
• In visual mode use a single '>' to indent the visual selection. This will drop you back out of visual mode. Use the . operator to repeat the indentation and u to undo the indentation.
• << and < unindents
• Use == to auto-indent the current line (= in visual mode)
• These commands can be used with motions e.g. =i} will auto-indent the current inner block. =G will auto-indent until the end of the file.

6. Working with Buffers

• :ls - show the buffer list
• :bn - open the next buffer
• :bp - open the previous buffer
• Ctrl-^ - switch to the alternate file (displayed with the # in ls)

Hidden Buffers

• + sign in ls means that the buffer has been modified
• A hidden buffer has unsaved changed and is not loaded in a window
• :w saves the buffer
• :e! reverts any changes
• :q! quits Vim and discards any changes in any buffers.

7. Working with Windows

• We can split the current window and open the same file in the new window. This gives us two views into the same file.
  • Ctrl-w s split the window horizontally
  • Ctrl-w v split the window vertically
• We can also open a different file in the new window
  • :sp filename open filename in a new horizontal split
  • :vsp filename open filename in a new vertical split

Closing split windows

• :q[uit] closes the current window
• :on[ly] closes all the other windows except for the currently active one

Navigating between windows

• Ctrl-w w cycle between the open windows
• Ctrl-w h move to the window on the left
• Ctrl-w j move to the window below
• Ctrl-w k move to the window above
• Ctrl-w l move to the window on the right

VimCast Episode 7

8. Working with tabs

In Vim tabs are used to have different layouts for viewing buffers. The same buffer can be open in multiple tabs.

• :tabedit filename opens the file in a new tab
• Ctrl-W T moves the current split window to its own tab
• :tabclose closes the current tab page and all its windows
• :tabonly closes all other tabs except the current tab

Navigating between tabs

• gt move to the next tab
• gT move to the previous tab
• <number>gt move to the specific tab number. Note that tabs are numbered from 0.
• :tabmove move the tab to the end.
• :tabmove <number> move the tab to the specified tab position.

VimCast Episode 8