I noticed that for whatever reason, my _vimrc wasn't being loaded this morning. I keep my entire vim directory saved to my Google Drive to the location I specify in my _vimrc. I didn't worry about it since I'd recently backed it up, but now when I dump it into my vim folder, whenever I start up gVim, it looks like it renames it to _vimrc.2014.
I can't find anything about this behavior, is it normal? It doesn't really affect me too much since it still gets source, but I just want to know why it's doing that.
Vim certainly is not doing this. I'm not certain it's causing YOUR problem, but Google Drive has problems replacing files with a new file of the same name. Under the hood, that is exactly what Vim is doing when it writes a file with default settings. See https://groups.google.com/d/topic/vim_use/jkw_nnHz9cE/discussion : you can use either the 'backupskip' or 'writebackup' options to force Vim to write the file directly instead of replacing it with a new file when editing inside your Google Drive folder. I'm using this line in my .vimrc to accomplish the task:
let &backupskip.=','.expand('$HOME/Google\ Drive/').'*'
Related
Although this question is similar, answer given over there changes the working directory only temporarily i.e. whenever I close and reopen gVim and write a new file given just the filename, it saves it in the home directory.
Here is another similar question, but I didn't get what the answer is trying to say. I found a _vimrc file at C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim. But I don't know what to do with it.
I want to achieve this:
Whenever I open vim and write a new file, given only the filename, it should save it in C:\Users\Sourav Kannantha B\Documents\Vim Projects instead of C:\Users\Sourav Kannantha B
I just downloaded gVim today from their website. So I am new to this.
I like Vim as my mergetool and difftool. Whenever it runs (usually from git), it saves the files view states at ~/.vim/view folder, so when back to edition, they show up with diffmode on and have weird borders. Having to disable them manually or run rm ~/.vim/view/* outside Vim and reopen the files fixes it, but seems odd. How to prevent these tools from saving missconfigured view files?
[edit, more info about my setup]:
Very raw Vim. No plugins. No mappings. Only a bunch of random convenience tweaks on .vimrc (that I believe have nothing to do with the question: personal backup of .vimrc on GitHub). That is, as #filbranden points out, it might be possible to make an if statement to differentiate a diff session from others, and only save view files when not diffing. I am afraid not to know enough about vim script at this point.
I have a MacBook and I am writing a latex file in vim and I render to created pdf in Skim. I have setup Skim to check for file changes. Every time I save my latex file, I get an error from Skim that says: "Unable to load file". The file is still loaded correctly, so I am not sure why I am getting this error. Is there something that I need to do in order not to get this error?
This may be related to the way that Vim is writing the buffer. With the default value of 'backupcopy', Vim renames the original file, and then writes a new one with the updated contents. Other applications that observe the original file for changes might get confused about that, resulting in that error you see.
Try :setlocal backupcopy=yes. If that gets rid of the error, you can define this globally (with :set) in your ~/.vimrc, or just for Latex files via the corresponding :help ftplugin-overrule.
I have been using Vim casually for around 3 years (mostly for git commit messages) and recently started using it exclusively for text editing and coding while I work my way through a series of intermediate tutorials and resources. Up until a few weeks ago, I primarily used either Vim, NeoVim or iVim (on iOS).
Recently I installed MacVim and started using it exclusively when I'm working in iTerm on a Mac. I have noticed some differences in the way .swp files are created and managed. In the other versions of Vim that I have used, .swp files are only created when I have a file open in more than one instance of Vim at the same time. It seems that MacVim creates .swp files for every open file (I'm guessing for backup/restore purposes). MacVim also seems to put .swp files into the working directory. I don't recall other versions of Vim doing this but it recently led me to add *.swp to my global Git ignore settings.
Before drafting this question I did a quick search for: vim macvim swp files and found one result that gave me a few ideas on how to work around one of the issues that I've noticed:
Vim Swap Files Not Deleting
I also found this post that gives the impression that the following settings are involved:
backup / nobackup
writebackup / nowritebackup
swapfile /noswapfile
But this doesn't really answer my question, which is "What is different?". I am editing my .vimrc regularly and would like to add in the appropriate settings to get the same behavior in MacVim by default (while also understanding what I am adding). What is unique about the way MacVim is setup related to swap files? Is there a specific combination of the three settings mentioned above or are more settings involved? How can I set up the same default behavior I have noticed in Vim, NeoVim, and iVim?
I have read the MacVim FAQ and Troubleshooting Guide but didn't find any relevant information.
The default location for a swap file is determined by :help 'directory'. Given the default value, Vim will try the directory of the file for which the swap file is created first, appending the .swp extension. If it can't create the swap file there, it will try the next location in 'directory':
The file:
_posts/2018-07-31-npm-201.markdown
The swap-file:
_posts/2018-07-31-npm-201.markdown.swp
If a swap file already exists for a file you are trying to edit and you decide to edit it anyway, another swap file is created at the same location, with a different extension: .swo, .swn, etc.
What I described above is the normal, expected, behaviour. And that's how MacVim works.
In the other versions of Vim that I have used, .swp files are only created when I have a file open in more than one instance of Vim at the same time.
Those "versions of Vim" are either:
broken,
weirdly configured,
not Vim.
It seems that MacVim creates .swp files for every open file (I'm guessing for backup/restore purposes).
You guessed right, and yes, that's the expected behaviour in every Vim.
MacVim also seems to put .swp files into the working directory.
If the file is in the working directory it's normal. If it's not, the working directory may be part of 'directory'. If it's not, you have found a bug.
I don't recall other versions of Vim doing this but it recently led me to add *.swp to my global Git ignore settings.
It's very common to have a Vim section in there.
My System was crashed yesterday, the problem is that syntax is disable and set autoindent is not in use.
Even I remove this file, touch this file again, it remains not right!
Swap files are not meant to edit directly.
Swap files are special files that store pieces of Vim's state, and pieces of the unsaved file, in a Vim-specific format. These are not backup files.
You may be able to use the swap file to recover any edits-in-progress. To do that, simply edit the file you were editing when your system crashed. Vim will detect the swap file and prompt you to recover the file if it is able to do so.
That is, if you haven't invalidated the swap file format attempting to edit it in a misguided attempt to recover your file from it by hand.
Now, Vim does have a separate ability to make real backup files that are copies of your file, whenever it saves. But that doesn't help you from a system crash, that helps you when you mess up your file yourself while you edit, and then save it.
There is also a proposed new feature (in the todo list) for adding a command to recover an entire file from an undo file, if the file itself got deleted somehow, but that's not included in any released Vim yet.