I have enabled vim syntax on (in ~/.vimrc syntax on) and it works but only on files with a code in when I view them. When I create a new file with vim and write there some code - no syntax highlight. After saving this file and reopening with vim - syntax highlight works perfect.
I am using manjaro KDE.
When you open a new file without an extension (vim mynewfile) none of vim’s filetype detection mechanisms can recognize it (they all use either extensions or first-couple-of-lines heuristics, which don’t work here).
When you enter code and reopen the file, the line-checks for filetypes work, causing the syntax to be set correctly, causing highlights to apply.
You can always set syntax=mine (though set filetype=mine is better) to set it manually.
This problem shouldnt happen when you do vim some.c or similar, because the extension will force detection based on extension rules.
Vim must know how to highlight your syntax in order to actually highlight it. One way to do this, is for Vim to check the file name and sometimes inspect the contents of the file, and set the file type. The file type is then used to highlight the syntax.
To enable detection of the file type (and load plugin and indent files), add the following to your vimrc:
filetype on plugin indent
If Vim is unable to detect the file type, and you have not yet saved your file with a known extension, you can set the file type manually, like this:
:set filetype=html
Vim will then highlight the syntax of the file as HTML syntax.
More information is available in the help pages.
Related
When editing a text in markdown, I don't want to highlight bibliography entries. This can be achieved with the following command:
:syn match CitNoSpell '\[#[^[:space:]]\+\]' contains=#NoSpell
However, if I enter this command to .vimrc, it is ignored. I assume that is because spell file is loaded after vimrc has been read, and this definition is not kept.
How should I force vim to ignore this pattern? I prefer it to stay in .vimrc, as I synchronize the file across multiple systems, but another solution would also be welcome.
As the ~/.vimrc is loaded first (before any files), the syntax of an opened file is set only later, and syntax scripts :syntax clear any existing syntax stuff, including your definition.
The right place for your customization would be the :help after-directory; i.e. ~/.vim/after/syntax/markdown.vim, as this will be sourced after $VIMRUNTIME/syntax/markdown.vim.
If you insist on configuring this within your ~/.vimrc, you can try the following autocmd, which has to be put somewhere after :syntax on:
autocmd Syntax markdown syn match CitNoSpell ...
PS: For consistency, as you're tweaking the Markdown syntax, your added syntax group should also start with the syntax name, i.e. markdownCitNoSpell.
I installed Vundle, got the snippetMate running. But when vim launched, the snippet it loaded is _.snippets. With my Understanding, it is the default for snippet. However, i want to use other snippet such as sh.snippets and tex.snippets. I try to run the SnippetMateOpenFile in Vim to locate the snippets file It doesn't appear. I checked and see that all of the snippet file is there.
Yes, the _.snippets contains the global snippets. In order to use the other ones, the correct filetype has to be set. The snippet plugin reuses the same mechanism that Vim uses for syntax highlighting and settings (like indent) that are specific to a certain programming language. Usually, filetype detection works automatically; you can check with
:verbose setlocal filetype?
This needs to print sh for shell scripts, to use sh.snippets. If it doesn't, you have to fix / enable filetype detection (see :help filetype-detect), or, for a one-time fix, set it manually:
:setf sh
(I'm not sure about your particular snippet plugin; I guess it's snipMate, but there are multiple variants around.)
I found out what happened. the snippets won't recognize the snippet files rightaway. So i saved and exit the text and reopen vim again. It works, yet seems like there must be a certain tag in order for vim to recognize the format of the file.
Vim doesn't show a certain file with colors. However, renaming this file will avoid this problem. Besides, files of the same type don't have the same problem.
What can be a problem?
If the file extension is not recognized for syntax highlighting you can use set syntax command.
Here is an example to set the current window html syntax highlighting:
:set syntax=html
If you want to set the file extension to be recognized to a specific file extension I would follow the instructions here:
vim: persistent :set syntax for a given filetype?
Since you asked why a certain file doesn't use syntax coloring, here's the reason behind it:
The swap file!
You somehow changed the syntax value, which gets stored in the swap file. Renaming solves your problem, because Vim doesn't have the old swap file associated with it.
Yes, you fixed your problem by :set syntax=foo. But if you encounter problems, which only apply to a specific file, then it's rooted always in the swap file! There are tons of problems like this, which can be solved by deleting the swap file and therefore restoring the default expected behaviour.
The variable for the swap directory can be set like this:
:set dir=~/vimfiles/swap (my swap)
Defaults from Vims help (:h dir):
for MS-DOS and Win32: ".,c:\tmp,c:\temp"
for Unix: ".,~/tmp,/var/tmp,/tmp")
Earlier, when I used open .py files in vim on ubuntu, they would be well formatted, with separate colours for separate segments of the program. Now, when I am using VIM on ubuntu, all the text in the .py file appears black. How can I correct this?
Formating in Vim means text formatting; e.g. indenting lists and breaking long lines. You're concerned about syntax highlighting, which is purely about the visual appearance of code.
First, it needs to be turned on.
:syntax on
does that.
Second, you probably want Vim to automatically detect the used language (e.g. Python) and choose the correct syntax plugin for you.
:filetype on
does that, though you usually enable more via :filetype plugin indent on.
To make these settings persistent, put them into your ~/.vimrc configuration.
Check man vim. In a nutshell, find a copy of a vimrc file, one might be under /usr/share/vim/ subtree. It may be named vimrc_example.vim. Copy to your home directory and rename it as .vimrc.
I am using Linux Mint 13 Maya Cinnamon 64-bit. My Vim version is 7.3 and I installed the latest version of Janus.
I found that for any files with a hash "#" in its content, the syntax highlight for the file does not work. For example,
# test
print "Hello"
The 'print' has color while I am editing the file. But when I save it and open it again the whole file loses syntax highlight.
If I deleted the first line and save, the syntax highlight comes back after I open it again.
This applies to all kinds of files such as .py, .c and .h. If there is a hash "#" character in the file, syntax highlighting does not work.
I have already tried "syntax on" but nothing changes.
I don't know Janus so this answer might not be 100% useful for you, but let's see. You could try finding out where the settings have been set. Try this:
Get current settings:
:set filetype? syntax?
Check where these have been set:
:verbose set filetype? syntax?
Execute these commands when you lost your syntax highlighting:
:syntax on
:set ft=python
:verbose set ft? syn?
Here you should see which script changed your filetype after saving. Normally, vim uses heuristics to determine the correct filetype if the file extension is ambiguous. In cases where these heuristics don't work, you usually set a global variable in your vimrc to a fixed value. In your case this would be something like:
let g:filetype_py="python"