User statement:
I use Vim to write many technical text documents, including emails.
Question:
Is it possible to "store unique words" from past documents in some .vim/file that would be automatically loaded when any future file is opened and the Ctrl+N command is issued? I know others have asked about pointing to a dictionary file in addition to the current file (e.g., Vim auto complete, both with current file and dictionary) but I'd rather the process was dynamic.
Ideal behavior:
I'd like to write one email containing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Then, in some future email, I'd like to start writing Superc and then Ctrl+N would complete the word.
Further thoughts/requests:
I assume there is concern about such a "carryover file" growing excessively large over time. It would be great if it is possible to prevent "words shorter than K characters" from being stored.
I'm also willing/interested in manually editing such a file.
Related
I've found questions that are similar, but don't really address what I'm trying to learn. I want to yank or delete text and append it to a new (or existing) buffer without changing buffers. I want to basically redirect the pasted text to its destination at the end of a separate buffer without leaving the original one, similar to what you might do with shell file redirection. I have a hard time believing vim/nvim can't do this, but haven't found an appropriate answer anywhere as of yet.
:'a, 'bw ~/path/to/file.txt
This will copy the text between the two marks 'a and 'b, and write it to a file in the filesystem. This is good, but the file can't be appended to... and it doesn't get opened in a buffer.
There is a :w >> {file} variant that lets you append to a file (:help :write_a).
As #Matt already commented, the usual way would involve switching buffers. Vimscript usage is closely aligned with (mostly Ex-) commands that the user would interactively use. With recent Vim versions, you can alternatively call the low-level appendbufline() function, though. This would bypass any autocmds, buffer setttings, etc. Depending on your use case, this can be desirable or not.
If the target buffer is already visible or can be kept visible as a side effect, temporarily switching to it is easy (mostly involving :sbuffer). My ingo-library plugin has a function ingo#buffer#visible#Execute() that also handles hidden buffers transparently.
Yes, that title is the best I could come up with :-)
I have a text, and when activating spellchecking naturally a lot of words come out highlighted. Like emails, adresses, names and so on. How to tell Vim that some word is okey, without adding it to the wordlist.
Meaning, just, while editing this document I don't want to see my name highlighted.
Try: zG
:help internal-wordlist
From http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/spell.html
zg Add word under the cursor as a good word to the first
name in 'spellfile'. A count may precede the command
to indicate the entry in 'spellfile' to be used. A
count of two uses the second entry.
In Visual mode the selected characters are added as a
word (including white space!).
When the cursor is on text that is marked as badly
spelled then the marked text is used.
Otherwise the word under the cursor, separated by
non-word characters, is used.
If the word is explicitly marked as bad word in
another spell file the result is unpredictable.
I have my Vim config in a git repository, which is useful for several things; For example, you could alias your vim to a small script that invokes Vim normally, but after Vim finishes checks if the ~/.vim/spell directory has any modifications and if so, asks you if you want to keep or discard them. If you want to keep them, it could automatically commit everything in spell and otherwise reset everything in there. So you usually wont be bothered by that script unless you actually do use the spellchecker.
The only drawback would be that you couldn't both make persistent and volatile additions to the dictionary in one session.
Is there a way to tell Vim not to highlight a word once? For example, in "the password is abc123", I don't want to add abc123 to the wordlist, but still wouldn't like the big red rectangle around it.
Clarification: I'm looking for a command that makes the spell checker ignore the current word (or last misspelling).
Without having the word stored somewhere, it's hard (not to say impossible) to ignore it always.
But, if you are looking to ignore the word really once, that is only for a moment, you can add it to the internal list with the zG command.
*zG*
zG Like "zg" but add the word to the internal word list
|internal-wordlist|.
*internal-wordlist*
The internal word list is used for all buffers where 'spell' is set. It is
not stored, it is lost when you exit Vim. It is also cleared when 'encoding'
is set.
When your cursor is positioned on a word that is highlighted as misspelled you can add it to your wordlist by pressing zg. Vim allows you to load more than one wordlist at a time, which makes it possible to have (for example) a global wordlist, and a project specific wordlist.
By default, when you run zg it will add the current word to the first spellfile it finds in your runtime path for the current encoding. In my case, that turns out to be ~/.vim/spell/en.utf-8.add when I'm working with UTF-8 encoding. Try running the following commands:
:setlocal spellfile+=~/.vim/spell/en.utf-8.add
:setlocal spellfile+=oneoff.utf-8.add
That will set you up so that zg (or 1zg) adds the current word to your default spellfile. But running 2zg would add the current word to a file called oneoff.utf-8.add, in the same directory as the file that you are working on. If the file doesn't exist, Vim will try to create it for you.
When you open the file again in the future, you will have to run the same two commands to make Vim check the oneoff.utf-8.add spellfile. Unfortunately, Vim does not allow you to set the spellfile option in a modeline, so if you want to run these commands automatically when the file opens, you would have to find some other way. This question includes a few ideas on how you might proceed.
I just ran :help registers in Vim and noticed that # 'contains the name of the alternate file'.
I have seen an example for renaming files that goes like this:
" Save the current file, foo.txt, as bar.txt
:w bar.txt
" Start editing bar.txt
:e#
So apparently in that case, the file you just saved out is the "alternate file."
Can someone give me a more general definition for the "alternate file" and what else you might use it for?
The alternate file is the file that was last edited in the current window. Actually when you use some command to open a new buffer, if the buffer that was displayed had a filename associated with it, that filename is recorded as alternate file name.
See :help alternate-file.
Very useful for...
Pasting in the name of a file I've just been looking at into the current file.
You can use <C-R># for this in insert mode or "#p in normal mode.
Not that useful for...
Jumping back and forth between two files. It does the job very well, but this is just something I don't generally need to do.
Even in the example given, I'd probably use:saveas bar.txt instead.
An Example:
Say if you're doing a bit of C programming and want to call some function. You can't remember the name of the function, so you place a mark on your current location mA and jump into several different files using tags or grep to find out where the function is declared and what it's actually called.
Ah - found it. You can copy the name and return to the mark yiw'A
Uh-oh - we also need to #include the file! Easy - just use the alternate file name register to paste the file name in... Gi#include"<C-R>#"
Be pleased that you've avoided the distraction of having to go back to the function's declaration and copy out the file name via :let #"=#% or something similar.
What I'd rather do when jumping between files:
When editing two files, it's probably easier to split them, so you can keep both on screen at the same time. If I'm editing 2 files I'll usually be comparing them in some way.
Usually I'm interested in 1-3 files (any more and I get confused). I'll often jump into or directly open many other files. Marking the interesting files, or traversing the jump list is usually the way to get around in this case.
If you're editing C/C++ where you're switching between a file and it's header, use a plugin! It will be much more convenient.
I use it in the buffer context to return to the last buffer that I was editing
vim foo bar
:n
:e#
will take you back to foo in that case
I 've always interpreted the "alternate file" as being the "previous file", so it is an handy way to jump back to the buffer you were editing.
I just started using the spell checking feature in vim. According to the documentation, zg adds the current word to the first spellfile.
Is it recommended to create an own, empty spellfile, so that the English one doesn't get littered? If so: How do I create an empty spell list? An empty appropriately named file yields "E757: This does not look like a spell file".
Using your own additional spell files is both the recommended and default way of doing custom spelling. In Vim you have a 'root' spell file based on the current language and encoding, and an optional quantity of 'additional' spell files.
The easiest way to create an additional spell file (if you haven't already) is simply to add or remove a word using zg or zw - If 'spellfile' is empty, an new additional spell file will be created in the first writeable directory in 'runtimepath'.
The naming of spell files can be a bit tricky. Firstly, Vim takes a text file containing a list of words and converts it into a binary file which is a lot quicker to work with internally. The reason you're getting an error E757 is that Vim is attempting to load the binary spell file, but it's not finding the marker text at the start of the file, so it's bailing out.
To create your own spell files the filename needs to be in the format "mySpellFile.en.utf-8.add" where spelllang=en and encoding=utf-8.