A Solid Vim Configuration

This is an ever evolving VIM config, which incorperates several plugins, color schemes, and custom functions. The .vimrc if heavily commented, and there are a few notes in this file, about some of the handier plugins and quicktips.

Part of the beauty of vim is how modular and configurable it is. I invite you to use this repo as a starting point, or a guide for your own. This is also very handy as a place to sync such information between machines. Pretty much any machine I work on can be quickly bootstrapped to have a text editor that I know and love up and running in seconds. It's magic.

I also recommend you check out the my dotfiles repo as it includes some binaries that this depends on like, ack, pick, and eshint. If you use that repo, it will include this one, and you can skip installation.

Installation

Move to your homedir

cd ~

Clone the Repo

This will end up in your home directory.

git clone git://github.com/counterbeing/Vim-Configuration.git ~/.vim

Symlink it

Create a symlink in your homedir from .vimrc to the .vimrc inside this .vim ln -s .vim/.vimrc

Run The Script To Grab All Vim Bundles

cd .vim
vim +PlugInstall +qall

Featured Plugins

There are many great plugins out there, and many of them depend on what you're trying to do with vim. This is my own personal selecition, but would probably be a good starting point if you're working in Ruby and/or JavaScript.

Here's a cheatsheet of handy things, for reference.

Fugitive

https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive

Git integration within VIM. I know I really don't use this enough. I use this plugin in a few key ways, so I will outline them in workflows.

Making changes, and commiting them.

After making changes to a file, you can use :Gstatus to stage files for commit. A list will pop up, and you can select from the list of unstaged file by hitting the - key. Each time you do this, a file will be staged for commit. You can move them the other way as well. Then, in the same window you can use :Gcommit to commit and write a message, :wq and you're done. Here's a video demo.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AsKGOeonbIs?start=445&end=556&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

Gundo

TComment

command	result
gcc	Toggles the commenting of a block on or off

TableMode

https://github.com/dhruvasagar/vim-table-mode

There are a few minor tweaks to make this work a bit more naturally with markdown, as that's what I use it for primarily.

command	result
,tm	Toggles table mode on or off.

GitGutter

https://github.com/airblade/vim-gitgutter

This offers some great integration for git, showing the current status of changes in a file. It really helps you remember what you were working on, and be aware of what changes you've made. Even more cool. If you were workig on two different changes by mistake, you can easily stage just some of them for commiting.

Command	Result
,hs	Stage a hunk for commit
,hu	Unstage a hunk

SplitJoin

https://github.com/AndrewRadev/splitjoin.vim

Sometimes in any language you want to break a statement up into multiple lines as it gets too long to be easily readable. This great little plugin helps you do most of the dirty work without thinking about it. My only gripe at the moment is that it still prefers the older Ruby hash syntax. But, it's great, take it for a spin.

Command	Result
gS	Split a one line into multiple lines.
gJ	Merge a multi line hash or method or whatnot into a single line

Custom Script

Visual Mode

Command	Result
,p	Paste mode removes line numbers, and vertical alignment lines for easy system copying.
,r	Reveals a particular file in the finder.
,j	Pretty formats selected json.
CTRL-y	Yanks selected text to system clipboard.
,R	Runs rubocop autocorrect on current file.

General Vim Reminders

Some of my favorite and most used shortcuts.

Tab Navigation

command	result
:tabnew	Make a new tab
gt	Toggle between tabs
<ctrl> w T	Open current file in new tab

Folding

command	result
<space>	Toggles a code block of folding.
zW	Fold everything in a file
zw	Fold everything at a particular level
zR	Unfold everything in a file
zr	Unfold everything at a particular level

Rails.vim

https://github.com/tpope/vim-rails https://wincent.com/wiki/rails.vim_cheatsheet

Rails.vim adds some syntax highlighint along with some other nicities

command	result
:A	Open associated spec or file
:AV	Open associated spec or file in vertical split
:AS	Open associated spec or file in split

Splits and Tabs

Super useful feature of vim for laying out different files next to each other, so that you can see everything you want to see at one time.

command	result
:vsp	Creates a vertical split
:sp	Creates a horizontal split
:tabnew	Creates a new tab
^w h	Move left to different window, in a split scenario. This also works with all of the direction keys h, j, k or l
:tabnew	Creates a new tab
gt	Toggle to next tab

Sessions

Sessions are a quick way of saving window layouts, including spits, tabs, and even even set variables. I use it in a very simple way, which is just to output a Session.vim file in the current directory. I often need to drop what I'm working on to check out something on another git branch, which can cause issues with which files I want open. Usually I have things arranged in such a way that I have tests in one tab, and related code in another, or test/code pairs in each tab. It just depends on what I'm working on. With sessions, I can quickly save the state of the windows I was working on.

command	result
:mks or :mksession	makes a simple Session.vim file in the current directory.
:mks file_path.vim	Makes the session file where you tell it.
:mks!	Same as above except forces overwrite.
$ vim -S Session.vim	Open a VIM session file and open all of the tabs and splits.

Things To Improve

• Remove trailing line from copy to clipboard commands
• Fix highlight color of vertical rule on indented lines
• Add vertical rule to mark 80 char line lenght for select languages
• Get output from rspec to easily go to broken test