I was looking to get into learning a text editor for programming. However, I've quickly run into a little snag that I can't seem to find a solution to.
I have modified my /home/user/.nvimrc file to add some plugins and I can load it using :source ~/.nvimrc, however, it never loads automatically. :scriptnames shows a list of scripts in /usr/, but mysteriously absent from the list is the .nvimrc file in my home directory. Again, I can load it in the command line, but I'd like to not have to use :so ~/.nvimrc every time I open a file.
I am not using sudo to run vim.
How can I solve this problem? Is this something everybody has to do?
Could be this issue: https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/3530
Summary:
New location is ~/.config/nvim/init.vim
To keep ~/.nvimrc you can source it from the new location:
mkdir -p ~/.config/nvim
echo 'source ~/.nvimrc' > ~/.config/nvim/init.vim
Instead of referring to your rc file directly, consider using $MYVIMRC:
:e $MYVIMRC
:source $MYVIMRC
Reference: Learn Vim the Hard Way/Editing your vimrc
:help config lists the paths for each OS:
Unix ~/.config/nvim/init.vim (or init.lua)
Windows ~/AppData/Local/nvim/init.vim (or init.lua)
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim/init.vim (or init.lua)
Related
I am writing Bash script using VIM. I need to cd to a directory and run the command tool. The command tool is deep inside the directory. How do I quickly cd to that directory instead of manually typing the directory out in VIM ? In terminal prompt, I can get to the directory quickly using tab. It does not work in VIM.
Thanks
ffl3883
You can change to the currently edited file's directory with :cd %:h; see :help filename-modifiers. Likewise, if you trigger the tool from Vim :! % can do this quickly (and repeat with :!!). Or just :set autochdir, so that the current directory within Vim always follows the currently edited file (and you can then just reference the file via ./).
When typing file paths in vim (as I often do for shell scripts), I find filename-complete invaluable. Simply type <C-X><C-F> in insert mode.
N.B. It does not work in all cases (generally vim prefers the path to be a separate WORD), but a quick edit-complete-fixup isn’t terrible.
I am trying to learn how to use Vim. Apparently I have failed at the first hurdle since Vim (certainly on my computers) cannot open files from within itself. I know this must somehow be a mistake on my part since how can Vim still be around with such a flaw??
Anyway I have searched for the last day or so with no solution.
I have tried:
:e .
And Vim helpfully tells me that: "." is a directory. I was under the impression that this command would open a file browser in current directory, but it doesn't.
Similarly I have attempted other commands:
:Ex
:Explore
:Sexplore
:Sex
:Vexplore
:Vex
:Hexplore
:Hex
I have tested these from How do you open a file from within Vim? but nothing suggested there works.
All of these produce: E492: Not an editor command: <insert any of the above commands here>.
I am left with the conclusion Vim can't open files unless Vim is called from the terminal and the file is passed as an argument or the files happen to be in the current directory (where ever that may be) and you know the file's name.
Can someone help? I would like to be able to open files in other directories and list them but for the life of me nothing is working despite every guide I have read saying it would.
Thanks.
At the request from Zaffy this question has been solved.
At Robby Cornelissen's prompting I checked the MX's Linux's package manager and found that vim-common was installed but weirdly not vim. Once I'd installed vim :e . worked and I can now navigate the filesystem.
I have no idea the difference between vim-common and vim or the reason for the separate packages; Robby Cornelissen suggests that vim-common is probably a minimal or tiny version of vim.
In Vim, is it possible to change the default location of the user vimrc file, i.e., from $HOME/.vimrc to some other location ?
Another solution might be to create a symlink to you preferred location. I have my .vimrc in $HOME/.vim/.vimrc and symlink to it. This way I can have it in a git repo and backup it.
You must start vim with the command vim -u ./path/to/your/vimrcfile
vim -u NONE is a good way to start Vim without any plugin or customisation.
See :help starting.txt for more information.
The VIMINIT variable is my preferred method. The problem with aliasing vim with the -u flag is that if vim is opened in some way other than from the shell command your configuration won't get pulled in. Setting $VIMINIT does not suffer from this drawback. Check this out for more information.
export VIMINIT='source $MYVIMRC'
export MYVIMRC='~/.vim/vimrc' #or any other location you want
Note that Vim normally sets the MYVIMRC variable, though I'm not sure exactly what it's used for. Based on my testing, using VIMINIT in this fashion will result in it not being automatically set on startup as it would normally be. This is why I'm setting it myself.
This works for neovim too!
On Windows, I have the _vimrc that's in my home directory contain one line, source c:\path\to\my.vimrc.
I have not yet worked out a good way to move the entirety of my vimfiles folder, but that's less critical as it's all stuff I've installed from elsewhere. I.e., it'd be easy to restore if I lost it. (I know that I can change runtimepath but my problem is more coming up with a "good" way to do so.)
Update
After six years I extended slightly from what I mention in the comments below; as I put stuff into 'after' and wanted to just keep rtp clean I got something that has been solid for a while now. Today in my %USERPROFILE%\_vimrc I do hardcode the actual paths to things and it changes on every machine I use (and I basically do the same thing on *nix) but this gets copied around mostly-manually when setting up a new PC. I also have a version which I can use to launch Vim on another connected machine on the network, e.g. a co-worker's machine, so I get my config and all that, but the gist is:
set runtimepath^=E:/dotfiles/vim
set runtimepath+=E:/dotfiles/vim/after
set runtimepath-=~/vimfiles
set runtimepath-=~/vimfiles/after
runtime vimrc
and then %USERPROFILE%\_gvimrc just has one line:
runtime gvimrc
(Both vimrc and gvimrc are in the /dotfiles/vim folder and also on Bitbucket.)
I see two options, depending on your needs.
Have ~/.vimrc import the other location
create an alias in your bashrc alias vim="vim -u otherlocation"
I edited
C:\Program Files\Vim\_vimrc
and changed both the runtimepath and sourced my own .vimrc.
I also use these settings in Cygwin (and have them version controlled). So it's this in practice (added at the bottom of the _vimrc file):
let &runtimepath = 'C:\cygwin\home\cygwinaccount\.vim,' . &runtimepath
source C:\cygwin\home\cygwinaccount\.vimrc
Bliss ! :)
In linux:
You can edit .bashrc or .zshrc startup script and add the following lines to change the default location of .vimrc file
export VIMINIT='source $MYVIMRC'
export MYVIMRC='~/.vim/.vimrc' # Note the . (dot) before vimrc. If that is what you have called it.
I feel like the simplest solution is to just have a single line in ~/.vimrc that loads the vimrc from the other location, i.e.:
source PATH/TO/OTHER/LOCATION/.vimrc
I'm new to vim and wanted to get ctags integration working so I can more easily navigate a large java project.
I've pulled down the zip from source forge and extracted it but from here I'm not sure how to get it working with vim
Any help for a novice vim user would be great!
As nobody has given one critical function in these answers, I'll provide one more slightly superior answer.
The easiest way to use ctags with vim is by calling:
ctags -R *
from the root of your source repository. This will generate a tags file in that same directory.
In your ~/.vimrc file, add this short block:
" ctags optimization
set autochdir
set tags=tags;
" denotes a comment. set autochdir tells vim that if it doesn't find a tags file in the $PWD it will look in the directory parent for the tags file, recursively. set tags=tags; tells vim that the name of your tags file will always be the same as the default tags file generated by ctags.
So long as you run ctags -R * in your root source directory the first time and occasionally to update it (if you pull new changes from others) then you'll always have a fast and intuitive ctags symbol lookup in vim.
Using exuberant ctags, I use something like this in my project's base directory (excluding the "log" directory):
ctags -R --exclude=log *
You have to run the ctags command with the source files as arguments. This will create a tags file containing all information. Then you can open a file with vim, and e.g. press Ctrl-] when on a line with a function to jump to the code of that function. If vi isn't started in the same directory as the tag file, you can set it with :set tags=<file>
This is what I'm doing:
ctags -n -f [OUTPUT] [SOURCE] to generate the tags (NOTE: the -n applies to me but may not be necessary for your usage)
exec "set tags=" . [OUTPUT] inside of .vimrc to let vim become of aware of the tags
EDIT: I'm using
Exuberant Ctags 5.5.2
VIM 6.1
Additional info:
See ctags usages here
Tips and tricks from SO
look at this article: vim-easytags. i haven't tried this, but it looks quite good. manually creating and updating tags was really annoying. hope this will help. :)
I just installed Cygwin on my work machine and would like to use the .vimrc file I use on my Linux box at home.
Is that possible, or does it need to have Cygwin-specific settings?
Where would I put the .vimrc file?
I'm a little unsure of what directory I'm being dropped into at the bash prompt under Cygwin, but I think I'd create a subdirectory called .vim there, right?
I launched vi as vi -V and got this:
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
chdir(/etc)
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
could not source "/etc/virc"
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
could not source "$HOME/.virc"
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
chdir(/cygdrive/c/Users/johntron)
could not source "$HOME/.exrc"
Realizing vi was looking for .virc and not .vimrc like all the other *nix systems I've ever used, I just ran this to fix the problem:
cp ~/.vimrc ~/.virc
... or if if you've configured symlinks:
ln -s ~/.vimrc ~/.virc
I'm pretty sure this was a problem, because Cygwin installs vi, and not vi improved; however, the loading screen if you launch vi with no parameters still says vi improved. Regardless, I installed vim via setup.exe and running vim (not vi) does indeed try to load ~/.vimrc as expected. You can simply add an alias vi=vim to your ~/.profile to use the improved version by default.
Cygwin (as of version 1.7.25) installs vi (not vim!) by default. If you also install vim you will have two commands: /usr/bin/vi and /usr/bin/vim.
Unlike in other *nix (e.g. debian) both commands slightly differ in their behaviour on starting vi/vim.
Both commands will load Vi Enhanced but they differ in the files they look for to initialize the editor:
/usr/bin/vi looks first for /etc/virc and then for $HOME/.virc
/usr/bin/vim looks first for /etc/vimrc and then for $HOME/.vimrc.
Both files (in /etc and in $HOME) will be sourced if found!
You can check it yourself entering vi -V and vim -V.
Use .vimrc if you call vim and .virc if you call vi. Or simply alias vi=vim for using .vimrc
1) Yes it is possible. It doesnt need any cygwin specific settings, though you can add some windows specific ones. Just make sure to install vi (vim gvim equivalent) properly.
2) the same place as on *nix -- user home directory
Beware one thing: there is a Cygwin port of vim, and a native win32 port of vim. Both have their advantages and their flaws when dialogue with cygwin or native-win32 applications is concerned.
A category on vim.wikia is dedicated to cygwin related tips.
Some parts of file system of Cygwin use your "host" file system as its own. Within cygwin, there is a user home directory (which actually resides under your "Documents and Settings/Username" folder), so you should place it there.
Just place your .vimrc somewhere you know how to access via cygwin and do a
directory/you/know$ cp .vimrc ~/
It will work--at least worked with default vim on my Cygwin installation several months ago.
I don't see any reason why your Linux ~/.vimrc
should not work in your cygwin install.
To go to your home directory in cygwin,
cd ~
or
cd $HOME
In Windows, you can use WinSCP to connect to your Linux box, open your Linux .vimrc in the WinSCP default editor, copy the contents. Then switch to the Cgywin terminal and type
getclip > ~/.vimrc
Start vi/vim to see if your new settings have taken effect:
vi
I had to rename / symlink my .vimrc file to .virc in a directory like /home/Leo/.virc or more generally $HOME/.virc.
I just created my own and worked out of box:
1) vim ~/.vimrc
Once inside the .vimrc (blank file) I like to copy the example from:
2) :r $VIMRUNTIME/vimrc_example.vim
3) :wq
Then check any file should have lots of color and stuff
4) vim .vimrc (or whatever file, e.g. ~/.bashrc)
simply navigate to your home directory which is
c:/Users/user_name/
create the file using
vi .vimrc
set your preferences here, and they would surely reflect
like
set nu "show line numbers
set ai "auto indentations
colors blue " or elflord or whatever you like.
save and try.
I had issue with Cygwin vi tabstop. It was always defaulting to 8. While launching it was giving error "Failed to source defaults.vim" Tried to follow various solutions but below worked for me.
Create .vim directory under current user home ($HOME) directory.
Create .virc file under .vim directory.
Add below line to .virc
set tabstop=4
Cygwin version details
CYGWIN_NT-10.0-22000 3.3.5-341.x86_64 x86_64 Cygwin