I have this line in my .vimrc file:
set directory=~/.vim/swapfiles//
(Note that one extra slash makes the directory names to be included instead of just file names to reduce conflict)
The above config works fine on my Linux machine, but the problem is when I use the same file on Windows I get some warning about the file cannot be read. That's probably because vim is looking for ~/.vim/swapfiles/ directory, which Windows unfortunately don't have.
Is there any way to store my swap files on Windows somewhere (better if it could be in C:\Program Files\Vim\vimfiles\)?
CASE #2
If you got answer for my above question, here is the another one. I also have some lines similar to this:
autocmd filetype python source ~/path/to/file/python.vim
Windows confuses at this point too. How can I patch up?
If you don't want to introduce a $MYVIM variable as ZyX suggests, maybe an alternative is placing the runtime files in $HOME/.vim instead of the default $HOME/vimfiles on Windows. You can then use ~/.vim/... everywhere. This also helps with synchronizing the files across multiple mixed-platform machines.
" On Windows, also use '.vim' instead of 'vimfiles'; this makes synchronization
" across (heterogeneous) systems easier.
if has('win32') || has('win64')
set runtimepath=$HOME/.vim,$VIM/vimfiles,$VIMRUNTIME,$VIM/vimfiles/after,$HOME/.vim/after
endif
Maybe what you want is to have directory set based on the entries in runtimepath? Try this:
let &directory = substitute(&rtp, ",", "/swapfiles//,", "g")
With the default runtimepath setting on Unix-y systems you get
$HOME/.vim/swapfiles//,
$VIM/vimfiles/swapfiles//,
$VIMRUNTIME/swapfiles//,
$VIM/vimruntime/after/swapfiles//,
$HOME/.vim/after//
and on Windows
$HOME/vimfiles/swapfiles//,
$VIM/vimfiles/swapfiles//,
$VIMRUNTIME/swapfiles//,
$VIM/vimfiles/after/swapfiles//,
$HOME/vimfiles/after/swapfiles//
I agree, the after directories are unwanted, but vim will pick the first directory that exists and allows file creation so if you don't create the swapfiles sub-directory they won't be touched.
You might want to consider prepending these to the default value instead of replacing it so the defaults are available as a fallback if none of the directories exist.
I don't understand why you have the auto commands you mention. The default settings of runtimepath with filetype plugin on should take care of that for you.
Of course you always have the option of explicitly checking the platform and using different settings as in
if has("win32")
" settings for windows
elif has("win32unix")
" settings for cygwin
elif has("unix")
" settings for unix
elif has("macunix")
" settings for macosx
endif
If you want to avoid an error if a file does not exist then you can use the following definitions in your vimrc
func! Source(file)
if filereadable(a:file)
exec "source " . fnameescape(a:file)
endif
endfunction
com! -nargs=1 -complete=file Source call Source(<f-args>)
and change source to Source when the file might not exist.
First of all, vim translates all forward slashes to backward on windows thus it won’t hurt having slashes. Just in case you think it can be a source of trouble.
Second, it is not impossible to have ~/.vim and all other directories on windows, just some programs don’t want to work with names that start with a dot. You may just add this to runtimepath as it is not there by default on windows and move all user configuration there.
Third, in most places you have a filename you may use $ENV_VAR. It includes setting &rtp, &directory and using :source. So the solution may be the following:
if has('win16') || has('win95') || has('win32') || has('win64')
let $MYVIM=$HOME.'/vimfiles'
else
let $MYVIM=$HOME.'/.vim'
endif
set directory=$MYVIM/swapfiles
autocmd FileType python :source $MYVIM/after/ftplugin/python.vim
(though I agree with #Geoff Reedy that there should be no need in using the last line).
And last, modifying and storing something in C:\Program Files is not the best idea, neither for you nor for the program itself (by the way, vim won’t modify or store something there unless you told it to). It is to be modified by installation, update and uninstallation processes, not by anything else.
I fully agree with Geoff Reedy that the autocmd shouldn't be necessary. In other cases, you can use :runtime instead of :source. It will automatically search all (user and system directories in 'runtimepath'.
Related
I just switched from Sublime Text to GVIM (on Windows). I am still debating whether I should continue ST or move completely to VIM. One feature that I desperately need (or miss) are
Ctrl+P to go to any file that I want in my list of folders.
Ctrl+Shift+f to find (and replace) any text in those list of folders.
I had added number of folders using Add Folders to Project feature in Sublime Text 3. It was really helpful. Now, I know that CtrlP plugin for VIM can do similar thing, but I can't figure out how to make it search the folders that I want, and not the root directory of current file.
I played around a bit with setting path in my vimrc file without much success.
Can you please help. If it is a repeated question, please excuse me.
Thanks.
AFAIK, ctrlp plugin only searches within one directory (and its descendants). Use the Unix features: make a directory with links to out-of-project directories you are interested in. This way, the association with out-of-project directories is not just something the editor knows about, but something recorded in the actual project.
Search and replace is a bit stickier thing. You want to work with all the files you are interested in, then repeat the replace command through all of them. For example, if you want to do the search for foo and replace with bar on all C files here and under,
:args **/*.c
:argdo %s/foo/bar/g
Ctrl+P to go to any file that I want in my list of folders.
The :find command can be used to "find" a file in the directories specified in the 'path' option:
set path+=/some/arbitrary/path
set path+=/another/one
:find *foo
I find these two mappings very handy:
nnoremap <key> :find * " search in every directory
" in 'path'
nnoremap <key> :find <C-R>=expand('%:p:h').'/**/*'<CR> " start from the directory
" of the current file
Ctrl+Shift+f to find (and replace) any text in those list of folders.
What amadan said above.
Good switch! So you’ve discovered CtrlP. It has extensive documentation built in. Use :h ctrlp to see the full vimdocs explaining the various options. It’ll explain some important settings for working dirs, which are pretty important for a good experience with it. Take for example some of the settings I use:
" The one you really care about...
" Set root to CWD. Another good option is 'r' for VCS mode.
" You should start vim in the root of your project tree
let g:ctrlp_working_path_mode = 0
" You _can_ switch dirs
let g:ctrlp_extensions = ['dir']
" Avoid big/unimportant project areas
set wildignore+=*/node_modules/*,*/build/*,*/components/*,*/_public/*,*/tmp/*,*/vendor/*
" Cache -- get used to pressing F5 on tree changes/additions
let g:ctrlp_use_caching = 1
let g:ctrlp_clear_cache_on_exit = 0
" Somewhat self-explanatory
let g:ctrlp_show_hidden = 1
let g:ctrlp_switch_buffer = 2
let g:ctrlp_max_depth = 6
let g:ctrlp_max_height = 50
" Open *h*orizontally and *j*ump to first win.
let g:ctrlp_open_multiple_files = 'hj'
" Use <C-d> to toggle
"let g:ctrlp_by_filename = 1
For further control of where to look for files outside your working tree, consult g:ctrlp_user_command. There is a Windows example using dir. You’d use that, but with your desired extra paths.
You might also want to add NerdTree, a nice complement to CtrlP. It is reminiscent of ST’s sidebar. Use its ? to get help. It has a menu that lets you quickly add files and dirs, maybe like you’re wanting out of “Add folders to project”.
For search-and-replace, look at ag.vim. I map it to <leader>g (meaning “grep”).
Those mentioned are some of my favorites, but you should explore the world of Vim plugins to decide which others are worth adopting. I recommend trying one at a time while you’re new, rather than a sometimes-opaque “distribution”. Tools to make plugin management easier are Vundle / Pathogen (choose one).
Eureka...!!!!!
After searching tirelessly for days (and sleepless nights), I found my answer (please read on).
First some foolosophy though
I was so keen not to give up on Vim. But this issue was just eating me from inside, and was disruptive in my work flow. I have many project folders in windows that I want vim to search through. Ctrl+p for some reason never really worked. I had some not-so-nice thoughts of giving up on Vim. and then I found this!
My Answer
This is a little different from what I expected. But the answer is Everything (by VoidTools). It allows to search from anywhere and gives results in a fraction of sec. It is by far the best filename search tool in Windows. It supports Regex. (though it is not text search tool). It has a command line interface called
es.exe
using Vim's FindEverything.vim plugin (FindEverything), I was able to search not only through my project folders, but pretty much anywhere. It returns the results in the vim buffer.
Thanks Y'all for your help. I know that not everyone may agree with this solution. But on Windows, this is by far the best solution, I found! Hopefully, it is useful for others why are in same boat!!!
I use the same vim setting across multiple Linux systems (at the moment Kubuntu and OpenSuse) thanks to git. I want to use different color schemes in for the various distros.
So I've create a plugin plugin/mycolor.vim where I fetch the distro name from /etc/os-release and then use
if s:distro ==? "openSUSE"
blabla
else
blabla2
endif
The /etc/os-release looks like
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="13.04, Raring Ringtail"
[...]
or
NAME=openSuse
VERSION="13.1 (Bottle)"
The shortest way to get the distro name that I have found (with some help) is
let distro = system(". /etc/os-release; echo -n $NAME")
but the idea of sourcing the file make be a bit uneasy, although it seems that the sourcing does not propagate outside the call of system.
The other, longer and probably safer way, that I've found is:
let s:distro = system("awk '/^NAME=/ {print $1}' /etc/os-release")
let s:distro = split(substitute(s:distro, "\n", "", ""), "=")[1]
let s:distro = substitute(s:distro,'"', "", "g")
The first line gets all the line containing NAME= included the new line character. The second line remove the new line and return the part after =. The third line removes the " if any.
Is that any better way to get the distro name or is already stored in some vim variable?
As Vim is multi-platform, it tries to avoid platform-specific stuff as much as possible. Therefore, there's no built-in variable; you can only use has('unix') to check for a Unixoid operating system in general.
I'd use your first approach with sourcing /etc/os-release (calling lsb_release -is might work, too); as it only invokes the shell, it's probably a tiny bit more efficient than using AWK to parse. You could also read in the file in Vimscript (via readfile()) and do the parsing there, but that just adds additional dependencies to the used syntax.
As a new shell is launched for system(), this has no side effects in Vim. Also, since the data file resides under /etc, only users with administrative rights are able to change it, so it's no security risk.
Alternative
If you have a need for other system-specific Vim configuration (e.g. different window size, or font), an elegant way is to add the following to your ~/.vimrc:
" Source system-specific .vimrc first.
if filereadable(expand('~/local/.vimrc'))
source ~/local/.vimrc
endif
In that local config file, you can then define a g:distro config variable. This duplicates the actual information and requires a bit of manual setup, but would avoid the system call on each Vim startup.
If you want to have different setting for different computer/system, I am with Ingo. create its own config part, and in your common vimrc source the specific config. I manage my .zshrc in this way among three computers.
If you just want to get the string from /etc/os-release, you could try:
let dis = system("awk -F= '$1==\"ID\"{printf $2}' /etc/os-release")
here it prints arch (I am running on archlinux). I picked ID instead of NAME because the NAME could have spaces.
If you like you can try to process the file /etc/issue, if all your systems have that file.
NERDTree keeps list of all bookmark in $HOME/.NERDTreeBookmarks file .When I hit B it show all entries from that file.So I tried having a local copy of this file with project specific bookmark but this does not work :(
Is there a way to see only project related bookmark in NERDTree ?
Here's what I use for git repo specific NERDTree bookmarks.
if isdirectory(expand(".git"))
let g:NERDTreeBookmarksFile = '.git/.nerdtree-bookmarks'
endif
Since there's no way to tell how a project directory is structured, it seems like the use of a shell environment variable is the easiest solution.
First, add path to your bookmarks:
export NERDTREE_BOOKMARKS="/full/path/.NERDTreeBookmarks"
Then add this to your ~/.vimrc or similar:
if !empty($NERDTREE_BOOKMARKS)
if filereadable($NERDTREE_BOOKMARKS)
let g:NERDTreeBookmarksFile = $NERDTREE_BOOKMARKS
endif
endif
Depending on how you develop, the use of environment variables may or may not be a suitable solution. I.e. if you open/close your shell all the time, or have a multitude of shells open at once.
A simpler alternative could be something like this, but it'll only work if you open vim/a file with vim in the directory the bookmarks are located.
if filereadable(".NERDTreeBookmarks")
let g:NERDTreeBookmarksFile = ".NERDTreeBookmarks"
endif
As timss already pointed out, the key setting is the g:NERDTreeBookmarksFile config variable. You need to find a way to manipulate that (global) setting depending on the project that is currently open. Using external environment variables is one solution; I would rather solve this with one of the local vimrc plugins that are available on vim.org; I use localrc.vim - Enable configuration file of each directory myself.
In each different project dir, you create a .local.vimrc script that sets the above variable to the project's bookmark file. (This only works reliably when you only ever open one project at a time in Vim.)
I'm sharing my vim settings across a number of different machines, which don't neccessarily have exactly the same configuration.
Now if my favourite font is only available on one system but not another, this leads to the problem that gvim uses a fallback which may not be the best choice.
So: Is there a way to do multiple tries of set guifont=... and somehow check whether it was successful? Or is there a way to provide a list of fonts to try?
You can give Vim a list of fonts:
set guifont=Monaco:h24,Inconsolata-gz:10
Vim will try the first then the second…
:h guifont doesn't tell if there's a limit to the number of choices.
Detection / fallbacks may work in this instance, but things get hairy when you also want different font sizes (due to different display resolutions), window sizes, local commands, etc.
A more extensible system than switching on $HOSTNAME or similar schemes is checking for a "local" .[g]vimrc and sourcing that in:
" Put this in ~/.gvimrc:
" Source system-specific .gvimrc first.
if filereadable(expand('~/local/.gvimrc'))
source ~/local/.gvimrc
endif
This way, all special settings are localized and do not complicate your shared config.
Following the accepted answer is likely the right method in most cases, but this is a work around. Platform specific to unix like gtk2 systems only. First, create a function checking for the font using a shell command:
function! Font_exists(font)
exec system("fc-list -q '" . a:font ."'")
return v:shell_error == 0
endfunction
Then use it with whatever logic is desired. E.g.:
if Font_exists('Iosevka Term')
set guifont=Iosevka\ Term\ Light\ 9
elseif Font_exists('Inconsolata')
set guifont=Inconsolata\ 9
elseif Font_exists('Terminus (TTF)')
set guifont=Terminus\ (TTF)\ 9
endif
I work in several groups, each of which has its own tab/indentation/spacing standards in C.
Is there a way to have separate selectable VIM configurations for each so, when I edit a file, either:
I do something like set group=1 to select a configuration
a local .vimrc that lives in the working directory is used to set the configuration automatically
I have this in $HOME/.vimrc:
if filereadable(".vim.custom")
so .vim.custom
endif
This allows me to put a .vim.custom file in every directory to load commands and options specific to that directory. If you're working on multiple projects that have deep directory structures you might need something more sophisticated (e.g. walk up the directory tree until a .vim.custom is found), but the same basic idea will work.
UPDATE:
I now do something like this in order to read a .vim file from the same directory as the file I'm editing, regardless of what the current directory is.
let b:thisdir=expand("%:p:h")
let b:vim=b:thisdir."/.vim"
if (filereadable(b:vim))
execute "source ".b:vim
endif
In Summary
There are a few ways to do this, of which most have been suggested, but I thought I'd summarise them with two extra ones:
Per-directory vimrc - has the disadvantage that Vim must be started in the right directory: if your project is in ~/project1 and you have ~/project1/.vim.custom and do cd ~ ; vim project1/file.c, the custom settings won't be found.
Modelines - very effective, but has the disadvantage of needing to add them to all files (and remember to add them to new files)
Directory specific autocommands - this is very effective
Scan for a specific header in the file (see below) - this is the one I've used most in the past where working for different companies or on clearly named projects
Per-directory vimrc that's checked when the file is opened (see below). Another fairly easy one to implement, especially if your project code is all in one place.
Scanning for a Header
In a lot of organisations, there's a standard header (with a copyright notice and project name etc) at the top of every source file. If this is the case, you can get Vim to automatically scan the first (e.g.) 10 lines of the file looking for a keyword. If it finds it, it can change your settings. I've modified this to make it simpler than the form I use (which does lots of other things), but create a ~/.vim/after/filetype.vim (if you don't have one yet) and add something like this:
au FileType * call <SID>ConfigureFiletypes(expand("<amatch>"))
" List of file types to customise
let s:GROUPNAMETypes = ['c', 'cpp', 'vhdl', 'c.doxygen']
func! <SID>CheckForGROUPNAMECode()
" Check if any of the first ten lines contain "GROUPNAME".
" Read the first ten lines into a variable
let header = getline(1)
for i in range(2, 10)
let header = header . getline(i)
endfor
if header =~ '\<GROUPNAME\>'
" Change the status line to make it clear which
" group we're using
setlocal statusline=%<%f\ (GROUPNAME)\ %h%m%r%=%-14.(%l,%c%V%)\ %P
" Do other customisation here
setlocal et
" etc
endif
endfunc
func! <SID>ConfigureFiletypes(filetype)
if index(s:GROUPNAMETypes, a:filetype) != -1
call <SID>CheckForGROUPNAMECode()
endif
endfunc
Whenever a file of any type is opened and the file type is set (the au FileType * line), the ConfigureFiletypes function is called. This checks whether the file type is in the list of file types associated with the current group (GROUPNAME), in this case 'c', 'cpp', 'vhdl' or 'c.doxygen'. If it is, it calls CheckForGROUPNAMECode(), which reads the first 10 lines of the file and if they contain GROUPNAME, it does some customisation. As well as setting expandtabs or whatever, this also changes the status bar to show the group name clearly so you know it's worked at a glance.
Checking for Configuration When Opening
Much like JS Bangs' suggestion, having a custom configuration file can be useful. However, instead of loading it in vimrc, consider something like this, which will check when a .c file is opened for a .vim.custom in the same directory as the .c file.
au BufNewFile,BufRead *.c call CheckForCustomConfiguration()
function! CheckForCustomConfiguration()
" Check for .vim.custom in the directory containing the newly opened file
let custom_config_file = expand('%:p:h') . '/.vim.custom'
if filereadable(custom_config_file)
exe 'source' custom_config_file
endif
endfunction
You can also put autocommands in your .vimrc which set specific options on a per-path basis.
au BufRead,BufNewFile /path/to/project1/* setl sw=4 et
au BufRead,BufNewFile /path/to/project2/* setl sw=3 noet
Plugin doing the right thing:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=441
“This plugin searches for local vimrc files in the filesystem tree of the currently opened file. By default it searches for all ".lvimrc" files from the file's directory up to the root directory and loads them in reverse order. The filename and amount of loaded files is customizable through global variables.”
Assuming your fellow developers won't complain about it, you can always add vim settings to each file in the comments.
/*
* vim:ts=4:sw=4:expandtab:...
*/
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
...
I created an open-sourced tool for just this purpose. Forget the headers, scanning, configurations, and local vimrc files.
Try swim.
Swim
swim is a quick tool for switching vimrc files and creating convenient aliases. Here's a short usage list. See the Github repo for a walkthrough gif and download instructions:
Usage
swim add ~/dotfiles/myVimrc favorite #Add new swim alias
swim ls #Show available swim aliases
swim add https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dawsonbotsford/swim/master/exampleVimrcs/vimrcWikia.vim example
swim with favorite #Set alias favorite as primary .vimrc
swim with main #Set alias main as primary .vimrc
Read More
https://github.com/dawsonbotsford/swim
After trying out the localvimrc plugin suggested by the previous poster, I very much like having non-futzy per-project control over vim settings.
It does ask confirmation before loading a .lvimrc file by default but there is a setting to automatically load .lvimrc files. Some might see this as a security hole, but it works as advertised.
I chose to .gitignore the .lvimrc files. Alternatively you can check them in as a form of shared settings (tab/space expansion, tabstops, other project-specific settings).
As mentioned by sledge the usage of that plug-in is the best option I have seen and use. jerseyboy commented that the utility recommended ask for confirmation before loading (ie. after opening every file). To avoid this just set at your main .vimrc the list of local .lvimrc files:
let g:localvimrc_whitelist='/development/kernel/.lvimrc'
Here's a variation on jamessan's
function! ConditionalLoad()
let cwd = getcwd()
if getcwd() =~ $HOME . "/src/mobile"
so $HOME/.vim.mobile
endif
endfunction
autocmd VimEnter * call ConditionalLoad()
I will frequently launch vi without a specific file that I'm jumping to so this enables loading config conditionally based on the current working directory. Downside is that the config isn't applied based on file but off of working directory.
I work in several groups, each of which has its own tab/indentation/spacing standards in C.
I work with all sorts of open source, all at the same time. It's not practical to be creating separate .vimrc files and reconfiguring the formatting standards. More than a decade ago, I finally got tired of dealing with the editor configuration and wrote a program called autotab to handle it.
When autotab is set up with Vim suggested, each time you load a file into Vim, autotab is invoked on it, and the Vim settings output autotab are passed to a :set command.
autotab reads several thousand lines from the file, analyzes them and determines the settings for the expandtab, tabstop and shiftwidth parameters.
It figures out whether the file uses hard tabs or just spaces for indentation, and it figures out the indentation size. If the file is indented with tabs, it figures out the right tab size, based on rendering the file sample using various tab sizes and judging it according to heuristics like line-over-line alignment of internal elements.
It works well enough that I stopped tweaking the algorithm years ago. If it gets confused, it's almost always because the file has formatting issues, such as the use of multiple conventions at the same time.
It is also "agnostic" of the file type and works well with a variety of different languages. I use it not only over C, but shell scripts, Lisp, Makefiles, HTML, and what have you.
Note that it doesn't handle other parameters of formatting that may be project-specific, like for instance, in C files, whether case labels in a switch statement are indented or not, or whether wrapped function argument lists are simply indented, or aligned to the opening parenthesis of the argument list. Vim does have settings for that sort of thing, and so the program could be plausibly extended to analyze the style and output those parameters.
Looking for mostly the same issue I also found the Sauce plug-in: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3992
It claims:
Sauce is a lightweight manager for multiple vimrc files, which can be used to load different settings for different environments. In short, you can maintain lots of different vim settings files and only load the one(s) you need when you need them.
I find it particularly interesting that it keeps it configuration all in its data directory instead of expecting the user to sprinkle dotfiles across the filesystem. This though often rather a metter of personal taste.
I have yet to test it though.
You can use stow for switching configuration (any dotfiles, not only .vimrc)
Install stow:
$ apt install stow
Create multiple directories for each configurations:
~$ ls -d ~/dotfiles/vim*
vim-all vim-webdev vim-go
Put different .vimrc's in them:
$ find ~/dotfiles -name .vimrc
/home/username/vim-golang/.vimrc
/home/username/vim-webdev/.vimrc
/home/username/vim-all/.vimrc
Now you can instantinate vim-golang config with this command (should be run inside dotfiles directory):
~$ cd ~/dotfiles
dotfiles$ stow -v vim-golang
LINK: .vimrc => dotfiles/vim-golang/.vimrc
Now it's linked:
$ cd ~ && ls -l .vimrc
.vimrc -> dotfiles/vim-golang/.vimrc
If you need to switch config, just re-stow it:
~$ cd dotfiles
dotfiles$ stow -v -D vim-golang
UNLINK: .vimrc
dotfiles$ stow -v vim-webdev
LINK: .vimrc => dotfiles/vim-webdev/.vimrc
$ cd ~ && ls -l .vimrc
.vimrc -> dotfiles/vim-webdev/.vimrc
More reading of it here: Managing dotfiles with GNU stow
Pros: pretty simple, no vim plugin dependencies, can be used for managing all dotfiles, not only .vimrc.
Cons: configs are independent of each other, you need to manage/update each of them separately (if you dont switch/update you configs too often - it'll not be the issue).