Vim

2024-07-15T02:01:16Z

Player01: /* Beginner's guide */

[[File:LearningToExit im.jpg|alt=Hacker Jeopardy question on "learning to exit _IM"|thumb|The most legendary Hacker Jeopardy goof ever (GrrCON 2022)]]

= Beginner's guide =
We talked about vim and how to set it up. Basically type

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
vimtutor
</syntaxhighlight>

and follow this. You'll learn the basic hotkeys.
{{Note|At this point, vim has decreased in popularity as people move towards gui editors and IDEs, but still has a place due to its ubiquity in *nix systems.}}

== .vimrc file ==
To edit the defaults file:
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
vim ~/.vimrc
</syntaxhighlight>

You can add the following to this file:
<syntaxhighlight lang="vim" line>
syntax on
set tabstop=4 softtabstop=0 expandtab shiftwidth=4 smarttab autoindent
set number nu relativenumber
set incsearch wildmenu
set backspace=indent,eol,start
</syntaxhighlight>

Inside vim, typing <code>:source ~/.vimrc</code> will adjust these defaults.

Line <code>1</code> gives syntax coloring for each file.

Line <code>2</code> sets an autoindenting where <code>tab</code> will be replaced with 4 spaces, and backspacing will remove 4 spaces. The <code>smarttab</code> will auto-indent when writing for loops, and <code>autoindent</code> will keep the new line's tab spacing.

Line <code>3</code> gives line numbers on the left side of vim. <code>relativenumber</code> gives a relative distance between each line which is beneficial for commands like <code>j</code> and <code>k</code> to go up N lines easily.

Line <code>4</code> works with searching in files. <code>incsearch</code> will jump to the first instance immediately while typing. <code>wildmenu</code> shows the files while trying to <code>:edit <file></code> or <code>:split <file></code>.

Line <code>5</code> sets backspace to delete lines nicely instead of moving backwards.

{{Note|Type <code>:set</code> to view all the possible settings, and type <code>:help <setting></code> to get more information on specific settings.}}

== Plugins ==

Plugins are the only point at which vim is more usable than VSCode. I use [https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug vim-plug] and the [https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug#unix install steps] are a single line.

At this point, add these lines to your <code>.vimrc</code>:
<syntaxhighlight lang="vim" line start="6">
call plug#begin('~/.vim/autoload')
Plug 'scrooloose/nerdtree'
Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline'
Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline-themes'
call plug#end()
let g:airline_theme='deus'
nmap <F2> :NERDTreeToggle<CR>
</syntaxhighlight>

which will set up 3 plugins.

[https://github.com/preservim/nerdtree Nerdtree] gives a nice directory on the left side of your editor.
[https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline Airline] and [https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline-themes themes] give

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Vim