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Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

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Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#81
post #63

Many decades ago, you had to resort to abbreviations so that you could use memory in the most efficient way possible. Computer hardware at that time was more expensive than labor. People having to adapt to how computers worked was the doctrine at that time. But in 2022, this is no longer true. Even the most limited platform you can think of can comfortably run vim. A $5 Raspberry Pi Zero is overkill for vim. And now,…

Quite apart from the fact that many (most?) vim short forms have long form equivalents, and vim has autocomplete - this argument feels misguided to me, mostly because I don't see why it would be limited to just vim. It seems natural, if you hold such a position, to also advocate abandoning CLIs like `ls`, `cd`, `jq`, `aws`, et al? - and I would despise having to put up with stuff like: $ change-directory foo/bar $ am…

Looks just like Powershell.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#82
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

defaults.vim was and still is an abject idea that we sadly can't get rid off, now that it has been there for a few years. The least desirable property of defaults.vim is also present in sensible or in system-wide vimrcs written by package maintainers: you get a black box where things are added/changed/removed without your knowledge or consent. "Your" so-called minimal setup is going to evolve over time, but not accor…

Same here. Vim's new "default" to tie middle-click paste to vim's buffer rather than the X selection drives me up the wall, every time. It's not just that I have multiple machines to administer, it's that there's multiple users (roles) to configure separate things. And for every user my default workflow is now broken. I've given up on vim. I'm now teaching myself Emacs on my own machine, and replace vim with neovim e…

Every time I use vim on server that doesn't have my .vimrc file that I copy around I inevitably end up googleing "disable mouse in vim"

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#83
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

defaults.vim was and still is an abject idea that we sadly can't get rid off, now that it has been there for a few years. The least desirable property of defaults.vim is also present in sensible or in system-wide vimrcs written by package maintainers: you get a black box where things are added/changed/removed without your knowledge or consent. "Your" so-called minimal setup is going to evolve over time, but not accor…

I took a second to see who the "we" is in your last sentence. The site vimways.org is unusable because its certificate has expired. Also, amen. Having used vi since before vim, I actually have a few settings to restore vi features and quirks that I like ( cpoptions+=vxZ!$- ).

Yeah, I know about the certificate issue but the person who can fix that appears to be unreachable. I hope it will be settled soon.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#84
post #60

The only thing I've really struggled with when trying to get into using vim full-time is navigating my project. In VSCode I basically hit CTRL+SHIT+F -> "portion_of_a_function_name_or_something" constantly. I abuse the heck out of global search. Is there a way of navigating your project in vim that's similar/easier? How do vim people quickly navigate their code without going "what was the name of that file with that…

Vim supports ctags[0] lookup out of the box which fits your need somewhat. I tend to use FZF[1] which has functions for leveraging ripgrep and silver surfer for searches. It can also use find. FZF also has dialogues for paring down results in real time (i.e., as you type) There are also plugins that are much more nuanced and more involved for searching symbols and providing autocomplete. Duoplete, vimcomplete, youcom…

+1 As a fellow global search fan, FZF + the silver searcher is the way to go. You just type `:Ag ` and you're done.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#85
post #76

I prefer VsCode these days - but every now and then a Vim macro is needed - the rare case where multiple cursors won't cut - I just C-p Open in Vim [1]... for fun and saving a few minutes (not always) [1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=jonsmith...

Doesn't the VSCode vim plugin support Vim macros as well?

I think it does - at least the NeoVim one should.

(But I feel like I'm faster with regular VSCode - multi cursors easily solve many "text editing" problems that Vim solves with macros/repeat/regexp)

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#87

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

Aside from the advice mentioned (I bind caps to escape), I find that beginners use escape waaaay more often than is necessary because they aren't using all the commands at their disposal. For example, entering insert mode to delete some characters instead of using d+motion or x. Or entering insert mode to add indentation instead of using the = operator. It would take too long to enumerate all the cases where there is…

Thanks. This is helpful. I never use those shortcuts and yes most of my Esc are for indentation and deletion.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#88
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Vim's new "default" to tie middle-click paste to vim's buffer rather than the X selection drives me up the wall, every time. It's not just that I have multiple machines to administer, it's that there's multiple users (roles) to configure separate things. And for every user my default workflow is now broken. I've given up on vim. I'm now teaching myself Emacs on my own machine, and replace vim with neovim e…

Every time I use vim on server that doesn't have my .vimrc file that I copy around I inevitably end up googleing "disable mouse in vim"

:set mouse=''
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