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IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED (and archived)

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vim-one

Because Vim’s +clientserver is awesome

click image below to see the animated demo click image above to see the animated demo

Features

Inspired by Derek Wyatt’s “One Vim ... just one” video, this rewrite of the mvim script builds on Vim’s +clientserver capability to better manage remote server sessions.

onevim’s features:

• Command line launch script to invoke Vim in any of its various startup modes (gui, console, etc.)
• From the command line, load a file into a split or tab
• Manages single server instance by default, avoiding the inadvertent creation of multiple forked gui instances
• Supports multiple servers through the --servername {name} option
• Attempting to load a file that is already present in another server instance will bring the latter to the foreground

Requirements

Currently requires a recent version of Vim built with +clientserver

Note that this plugin was developed and tested on Mac OS X. See the ‘future development’ section below for support under Linux and Windows.

Installation

Symlink creation

Create symlinks to the onevim launcher script to invoke Vim with the capabilities you need. The prefix and suffix of the symlink are significant:

• prefix drives Vim’s startup mode (g or m prefix for gui mode, e.g.)
• suffix drives how a file is opened (s for split, v for vsplit, t for tab)

Choose a string as a filler between the prefix and suffix. In the example creation of symlinks below, I’m using ‘vim’:

$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/mvime   # gui open with edit (default)
$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/mvims   # gui open in split
$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/mvimv   # gui open in vsplit
$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/mvimt   # gui open in tab(s)
$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/vime    # console open with edit (default)
$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/vims    # console open in split
$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/vimv    # console open in vsplit
$ ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/vim-one/bin/onevim ~/bin/vimt    # console open in tab(s)

The e suffix is merely a placeholder to avoid conflicting with existing commands.

For more details on how Vim uses prefixes to drive its startup mode, see:

:help view

Targeting a specific Vim version

If you have more than one version of Vim installed, you can target the desired version through the VIM_APP_DIR environment variable.

This will also be necessary if onevim cannot find your Vim directory.

Example of an addition to .bashrc for MacVim users:

export VIM_APP_DIR=/usr/local/Cellar/macvim/7.4-72

Or for the X version of Vim:

export VIM_APP_DIR=/usr/local/Cellar/vim/7.4.161

Note: as mentioned in Issue #2, +clientserver doesn’t appear to be working as expected in the console version of MacVim. Console users should use an X-based Vim built with +clientserver to make use of this plugin.

Configuration

Automatic focus switching on swapfile conflicts

If swapfile is enabled and you request that a file be loaded that is already loaded on another server instance, onevim will automatically switch to that latter server instance.

In most cases this avoids the annoying ‘E325 ATTENTION’ warning message to resolve swapfile conflicts.

If you want to retain Vim’s default behavior on swapfile handling, set the following value to 0 in your .vimrc:

let g:one#handleSwapfileConflicts = 1     " 0=disable, 1=enable (def)

Window placement on splits

To control the placement of windows on splits, add to your .vimrc:

set splitbelow
set splitright

Usage

Invoking via onevim will manage server instance(s) using Vim’s +clientserver ‘remote’ capability:

• By default, all files open in a single default session (--servername VIM)
• Specify an explicit server name through --servername {name} option to target a remote session

The latter feature is for users seeking to manage multiple server instances of Vim, such as those that are project-specific on the screens of multiple displays.

There’s no need to specify a --remote option. But if you do, onevim will pass all of your options through to Vim, no longer managing the server(s).

See also

If you find onevim useful, check out @reedes’s other Vim plugins:

• vim-colors-pencil - color scheme for Vim inspired by IA Writer
• vim-lexical - building on Vim’s spell-check and thesaurus/dictionary completion
• vim-litecorrect - lightweight auto-correction for Vim
• vim-pencil - Rethinking Vim as a tool for writers
• vim-textobj-quote - extends Vim to support typographic (‘curly’) quotes
• vim-textobj-sentence - improving on Vim's native sentence motion command
• vim-thematic - modify Vim’s appearance to suit your task and environment
• vim-wheel - screen-anchored cursor movement for Vim
• vim-wordy - uncovering usage problems in writing

Future development

If you’ve spotted a problem or have an idea on improving this plugin, please post to the github project issue page. Or better yet, fork and offer a pull request. Ports to other platforms (Linux, Windows, etc.) are welcome.

License

Copyright 2014 by Reed Esau. Because onevim is derived from mvim, it is distributed under the same license terms as Vim itself.