How do I start vim with syntax highlighting off? - vim

How do I start vim with syntax highlighting off?
Vim is taking a long time to highlight syntax for large XML files for me.

You can start vim with
vim -c 'syn off'
Or you can specify that it should turn it off for large XML files by making an ftplugin file. For instance put
if getfsize(expand('%')) > 400000
syntax off
endif
in a file named ~/.vim/ftplugin/xml.vim

You need to disable syntax highlighting. You can do that (and few additional options that can be useful in such situation) by following this instruction on Vi SE.

Related

Set spelling exception in vimrc

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.

How to get the value of minlines in Vim

Vim often shows wrong highlight when opening perl files contain pod paragraphs, use command
:syn sync minlines=9999
can handle this problem.I am curious about the value of minlines,so,which command will show minlines's value of current opened file? I didn't find that in vim reference manual.
I do not think there is a native command for that. I suggest you to check it out directly in syntax files. For example, about Perl, take a look at perl.vim. I am on Arch Linux and this file is available here: /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/perl.vim. If you go to line 435, you should see this: syn sync minlines=0.
Be aware that some syntax files define specific minlines rules. In Ruby/Java files, you should be able to call :echo ruby_minlines or :echo java_minlines respectively. This will not work with Python, PHP or JavaScript.
Finally, if you are ready to sacrifice a bit of performance for better ergonomics, you can add the following command to your .vimrc: autocmd BufEnter * :syntax sync fromstart
I use it to avoid annoying issues with syntax highlighting. It works great, but Vim will be extremely slow if you try to edit huge files...

Turn on Vim plugins for some files, not others?

I recently added filetype plugin indent on to my .vimrc in order to enable special indenting and syntax highlighting for Clojure code (*.clj files). However, it's also causing indenting in my LaTeX files (*.tex). This is annoying when I'm editing, and even more annoying, because the tab characters that get inserted confuse a custom program I use to process my LaTeX files. I know I can make indenting use spaces, but I really just want "intelligent" LaTeX indenting to go away. Actually, I want all intelligent indenting to go away, except where I specifically ask for it.
How can I get correct auto-formatting for Clojure code in Vim, but turn off all special handling of LaTeX files (except for syntax highlighting)?
Sorry if this has already been answered; I haven't succeeded in finding the answer yet.
(Irrelevant editorial comment: Sometimes Vim "upgrades" make me want to go back to Unix 'vi'. OK, not really.)
Each proper filetype plugin script has an inclusion guard at its beginning. If you don't want any of the filetype options for Latex files (i.e. filetype of tex), create a file ~/.vim/ftplugin/tex.vim with these contents:
:let b:did_ftplugin = 1
This causes the default ftplugin from $VIMRUNTIME to abort its execution. The same applies to indent: ~/.vim/indent/tex.vim and b:did_indent is the guard variable.
Alternative
On the other hand, if you just want to undo certain options (e.g. :setlocal expandtab to avoid inserting tabs), you'd put those overriding commands into the so-called after directory: ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/tex.vim.

Enabling markdown highlighting in Vim

I'm using Vim in a terminal on my MacBook Air with OS X Lion, and I can't seem to find a good plugin for Markdown syntax highlighting.
So far I've tried the plasticboy plugin and Tim Pope's plugin. The plasticboy plugin worked OK but was causing white space at the end of lines to be highlighted, and I haven't figured out how to turn that off. (It's really annoying, because every time I hit space when I'm writing it highlights the character.)
Tim's plugin didn't seem to do very much in the way of highlighting, other than maybe headers that use ###. Code blocks and bullets are ignored. I might be missing something there. I do use the .md extension on my Markdown files, so it should be picking up the filetype.
I've also seen a reference to Vim 7.3 having Markdown support built in, but without one of those two plugins I don't get any highlighting at all.
Do either of these require specific color schemes to work?
About the native syntax highlight for markdown I think it only works for files with the extension .markdown by default.
I was having problems with markdown syntax highlight for my .md files.
I tried:
:set syntax=markdown
And it worked.
So i included the following line in my .vimrc:
au BufNewFile,BufFilePre,BufRead *.md set filetype=markdown
Now my vim have syntax highlight for my .md files.
BufFilePre is needed for :sav
Native syntax highlighting
Native syntax highlighting for Markdown only works by default for the .markdown file extension.
The following line in .vimrc yields the best results for both vim and gvim:
autocmd BufNewFile,BufFilePre,BufRead *.md set filetype=markdown.pandoc
Explanation:
1. Specify your Markdown flavour!
If you work with mainly one flavour of Markdown (e.g. Pandoc), be sure to mention this as well! Doing so, allows for mixing and matching of both Markdown- and Pandoc-specific Vim plug-ins. For example: I have found the vim-pandoc-syntax plug-in particularly suitable for my highlighting needs. Nevertheless, I use the more general vim-markdown-folding for Markdown folding.
By the way, only one flavour is allowed, separated by a dot, e.g.: filetype=markdown.pandoc
2. gvim requires BufFilePre
gvim requires an additional BufFilePre in the autocommand line for Markdown file type recognition with the Save As… :sav command.
This should work to disable the end-of-line space highlighting when using the plasticboy mkd plugin:
:syn clear mkdLineBreak
You could autocmd that for the necessary file extensions so that you needn't do it every time you load a markdown file.
Note that this specific highlight exists because Markdown treats lines ending with 2 or more space characters specially by inserting a <br>, so it is useful.
The plasticboy plugin uses TODO highlighting for this rule, which is a bit too much as it's designed to, by default, be really garish - yellow background - so that it stands out. You can make this less visually striking by changing that highlight rule. One quick way to do this would be something like:
:hi link mkdLineBreak Underlined
Now those end-of-line spaces will show up as underlined. Try linking to other highlight groups for something that may appeal to you more. Instead of using link you can get even more specific about those end-of-line spaces: for instance you could specify that they show up as just slightly lighter/darker than the normal background, using your own highlight command, specifying custom ctermfg, ctermbg, guifg, guibg settings.
As above, you could autocmd this to apply your specific settings.
For more information about link highlight groups, type: :help group-name and you'll see a list of groups that can be linked that themselves should helpfully be displayed using their current highlight rules. Also: :help highlight.
In Tim's plugin the .md extension works only for README.md because filetype.vim specifies so.
" Markdown
au BufNewFile,BufRead *.markdown,*.mdown,*.mkd,*.mkdn,README.md setf markdown
If you don't like putting all of your configuration in ~/.vimrc, you can create ~/.vim/ftdetect/markdown.md (or its equivalent on Windows) with the following contents.
au BufNewFile,BufRead *.md setf markdown

How to prevent Vim indenting wrapped text in parentheses

This has bugged me for a long time, and try as I might I can't find a way round it.
When I'm editing text (specifically latex, but that doesn't matter) files, I want it to auto-wrap at 80 columns. It does this, except if I happen to be in the middle of a parenthetical clause, it indents the text which is very annoying. For example, this works fine
Here is some text... over
two lines.
but this doesn't
Here is some text... (over
two
lines
If anyone can tell me how to turn this off (just for text/latex files) I'd be really grateful. Presumably it has something to do with the fact that this is desired behaviour in C, but I still can't figure out what's wrong.
:set nocindent
The other options do nothing, and the filetype detection doesn't change it.
There are three options you may need to turn off: set noai, set nosi, and setnocin (autoindent, smartindent, and cindent).
This may be related, when pasting from gui into terminal window, vim cannot distinguish paste modes, so to stop any odd things from occuring:
set paste
then paste text
set nopaste
I had similar issues trying to paste xml text, it would just keep indenting. :)
gvim, the gui version of vim, can detect paste modes.
You can have a look at the autoindent option :
autoindent - ai
Copy indent from current line when starting a new line (typing
in Insert mode or when using the "o" or "O" command). If you do not
type anything on the new line except and then type or
, the indent is deleted again. When autoindent is on,
formatting (with the "gq" command or when you reach 'textwidth' in
Insert mode) uses the indentation of the first line. When
'smartindent' or 'cindent' is on the indent is changed in specific
cases. The 'autoindent' option is reset when the 'paste' option is
set. {small difference from Vi: After the indent is deleted when
typing or , the cursor position when moving up or down is
after the deleted indent; Vi puts the cursor somewhere in the deleted
indent}.
From the official Vim documentation
filetype plugin indent on
This switches on three very clever
mechanisms:
Filetype detection. Whenever you start editing a file, Vim will try to
figure out what kind of file this
is. When you edit "main.c", Vim will
see the ".c" extension and
recognize this as a "c" filetype.
When you edit a file that starts with
"#!/bin/sh", Vim will recognize it as
a "sh" filetype. The filetype
detection is used for syntax
highlighting and the other two
items below. See |filetypes|.
Using filetype plugin files Many different filetypes are edited with
different options. For example,
when you edit a "c" file, it's very
useful to set the 'cindent' option to
automatically indent the lines. These
commonly useful option settings are
included with Vim in filetype plugins.
You can also add your own, see
|write-filetype-plugin|.
Using indent files When editing programs, the indent of a line can
often be computed automatically.
Vim comes with these indent rules for
a number of filetypes. See
|:filetype-indent-on| and
'indentexpr'.
:set noai
sets no auto indent tt may be smartindent though. Check out the doc and see if you can find something more
http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/indent.html

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