I'm looking for a vim plugin similar to http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1325 with a directory list in which you can select a file to open. Does this exist somewhere? Wasn't able to find it myself.
NERDTree is the second best ranked plugin on vim.org and it perfectly fits your description.
There are many other variations of the same principle:
FuzzyFinder
LustyExplorer (the one I used before)
Command-T (famous among TextMate switchers, I never liked it, though)
CtrlP (the one I use now)
…
And I second :Explore.
Have you tried the :Explore command that comes with the standard vim distribution since (roughly) version 6?
See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/File_explorer for basic help on that command.
See http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/pi_netrw.html#netrw-quickhelp for detailed help on what the Explorer can do.
If you want to open an explorer without replacing the current buffer, you can use the :Sexplore command. A puerile mnemonic for that is to execute :Sex.
Related
Vim plugins frequently provide text-based documentation in a /doc folder.
For example, vim-orgmode, and vim-go.
How can one easily open the documentation from within vim?
Each doc folder should have :helptags run. This will normally be done automatically by plugin managers. After that, any tag in the doc files should be a legal target for the :help command (for help files, "tag" being "the stuff between two asterisks"). Thus, since there's *org* in the vim-orgmode's doc file, you should be able to do :help org to jump there. You can also say :help orgguide.txt to open the file itself by name.
Super simple: :h <doc-name>
Check out the Vim documentation:
Vim's online documentation system, accessible via the :help command, is an extensive cross-referenced and hyperlinked reference. It's kept up-to-date with the software and can answer almost any question about Vim's functionality.
What is the best way/plugin to explore filesystem and to open files and directories?
The best way to explore filesystem/directories in Vim is the one that best suits your needs. As it is phrased, this question can't get an answer because there's no "way" universally agreed upon.
On the other hand, if you want to have an overview of the many ways to explore the filesystem in Vim then, yes, that is a question that can be answered. In a non-exhaustive way, though.
NERDTree and netrw are already covered. These plugins show you a tree-like list of files and directories that you can act on. Before trying NERDTree, I'd suggest you try your hands on netrw as it comes with Vim by default and offers a much wider range of features than NERDTree. You should look around on http://www.vim.org because there are a bunch of similar plugins.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Vim's own file handling capabilities. Here is a sample of commands you can use from Vim to open files:
:e filename edits filename
:sp filename edits filename in an horizontal split
:vs filename edits filename in a vertical split
:tabe filename edits filename in a new tab
You have tab-completion, just like in the shell:
:e <tab> goes through all the directories/files in the working directory
You can use wildcards, of course:
:e **/*.js<tab> shows all the js files in the working directory and its subdirectories
Assuming you have set wildmenu in your ~/.vimrc, you can make tab-completion even better with an horizontal menu which can be customized further…
You can also use "args"… but that will be for another time.
Somewhere between Vim's default commands and netrw/NERDTree you can find a bunch of "fuzzy" and less fuzzy file openers more or less modeled after a feature introduced in TextMate a while ago: FuzzyFinder, LustyExplorer, Command-T, CtrlP and many other variations on the same theme. The core concept is to provide you with a list of choice that you narrow down by typing more characters in a prompt until the file ou want to edit is selected.
If you decide you want to go down the plugin road, I'd suggest you visit http://www.vim.org, compare what's there, try a few plugins and decide for yourself.
Anyway, you should get used to the basics before looking for a plugin.
Try NERD Tree, besides the tree tab it also enhances the classical directory listing as suggested by #ATOzToa.
On Windows, I find :!start explorer %:p:h to be the way to go, or :!start explorer . if I'm in the directory I want opened.
On MacVim you could probably do something similar with :!open . to open a Finder window on the current directory but I don't have a Mac handy to try it out.
Not sure what you'd use in GNU/Linux; it probably depends on your desktop manager.
Is there a history of files edited in VIM that persists between
vim sessions, e.g. last 20 opened files.
I tend to edit the same .conf files and I have to navigate to them each time
of course they are spread all over the filesystem.
Actually this behavior IS built in. With default settings you should be able to use the :oldfiles command to view a numbered list of recent files. Then use :e #>4 for example, to edit number 4 in the list. Or :browse oldfiles, according to this answer.
As standard, no, but there's a plugin here that adds this functionality. This one also mentions recent file history on the page, so it may provide an alternative.
As this answer indicates, one may use ctrl-o to jump backward in file history. It will automatically open previously edited files.
You should consider giving ctrlp a chance (if you are not using it now).
It provides the command:
:CtrlPMRUFiles
that let's you select previous opened files. That is besides all the other cool stuff.
I was using the MRU plugin mentioned by #DrAI but once I started using ctrlp I just use that one.
Another popular plugin that provides a mru capability is Unite.
You can use :marks to navigate between recently used files.
How do you manage big projects (hundreds of files) using only VIM?
I personally start having problems in any larger than small project.
is there any way to quickly 'go to file', preferably with name completition?
same for 'go to class definition', when it is in another file
I kinda know all the VIM basics, so I don't have problem using it for writing scripts or quick editing some source code. But it gets really messy for me when I have to navigate between files.
VIM has excellent support for tags. Once you have created a tags file for your project, you can jump to a definition or declaration of a method, class, etc., including jumping across files, all inside the same editing session.
Try
:help tags
To generate a tags file for C/C++, go to your shell prompt (I'm assuming your system is *nix/Cygwin) and type
info ctags
or
ctags --help
I like simple solutions, my favorite way to navigate at the moment is:
Add to ~/.vimrc.local
set path=$PWD/**
Then type this in the editor to find the file anywhere in the current working directory (pwd)
:find user_spec.rb
You can use tab-completion on the filenames to find multiple choices as well, making this TextMate convert very happy.
I use a combination of NERDTree (directory sidebar), FuzzyFinder Textmate (go-to-file like TextMate's CMD+T), and Sessions (:h sessions) to help me deal with large projects.
I would suggest using some sessions helper plugin. I would mention what I use, but I'm not satisfied with it yet. Just Google "vim sessions".
One thing to note with getting FuzzyFinder Textmate to work is that it depends on an old version the FuzzyFinder plugin, specifically v2.16. Anything higher and you'll get errors. But it's definitely worth the trouble. While it doesn't have name completion, its search is smart so if I search for fro/time/actionsphp it will pull up the file apps/(fro)ntend/modules/(time)_tracking/actions/(actions).class.(php) (parenthesis denote what it's matching). It makes it very easy to pick out files that are only unique by their folder name.
As well as the invaluable ctags and the various associated commands. I also couldn't live without the project plugin, which allows you to have the files of interest associated with a project in a separate pane. I can't remember how much of my setup is customised, but if I want to open a source file called Debug.c, I hit:
<F12> " Opens the project pane
/De " Searches for "De", which is likely to be enough to find Debug.c or possibly Debug.h
<ENTER> " Opens the selected file and closes the project pane
I often then do:
:vsp " Vertically split the window
<F12> " Reopen project pane
# " Search back to find previous entry with the same name (to find
Debug.h if I was on Debug.c: my headers are in Headers/ and
my source is in Source/, so the headers come earlier in the list
than the source). I use * to go the other way, obviously.
<ENTER> " Open the header file in the other window and close the project window.
With this relatively short sequence, I can open any file and it's header in a vertical split. Since the project plugin window is just a text file, completion is achieved by using Vim's searching capability.
Starting in Vim 7.3, the :find command has tab-completion of filenames.
So if you set your 'path' option to contain your entire project (probably using the ** wildcard to allow recursively searching subdirectories), then you can use the :find, :sfind, :tabfind, etc. commands with completion to get to any file in your project. This also allows jumping to files directly with gf and friends if the file name is in your text, for example in an include directive.
With this method, no external tools or plugins are needed for navigating to specific files. Although, it may admittedly not be as fast or easy to use, and doesn't address the need for jumping to definitions. For definitions, I use ctags as other answers suggest.
If you are using ctags as other posters have recommended, then make sure you look at the taglist plugin.
Make sure you take the time to read the docs and learn the key bindings. Here are a few to get you started (from the TList window):
o - open file in new window
t - open file in new tab
[[ or backspace - previous file in list
]] or tab - next file in list
Exuberant ctags.
Use Ctrl-] to jump to the tag under the cursor.
Opening vim from root of your source file and extending path option to include all sub-directories therein.
For example set path+=/usr/include/c++/** for C++ headers and set path+=** for your source directory.
This ,then, opens a plethora of following possibilities.
1) Opening file by name or parts of it
:find file_name
You can use auto-completion and wildcard expansion with :find reliably. You type the name, it will locate the name. This works language agnostic.I am sure you will like it.
2) Navigating to files under cusror:
if you want to go a file path like #include "project/path/classA.h.
gf or gF - go to file under cursor.
Ctrl-6 - to come back to last cursor position after gf or gF
3) API lookup and navigating to the API location
[i or [I can be used to look up your function signature for word under cursor without leaving your workspace. [<Tab> to actually go to declaration. Use Ctrl-6 to come back to last location.
Without extending path, you can start navigating files by :Ex command and navigate and open your file. I prefer NerdTree over this though.
I use FindFile. If you open vim at the root of your project and run :FC . the plugin will cache all the filenames beneath your cwd. You can then do :FF to open a completion menu and type the name of the file you want (or rather, the first few letters).
Although I'm kinda hoping someone will point out a better solution so I can learn something, NERDTree has been good to me for getting to specific files with name completion as long as I have the tree expanded. The command when I need to get to a file is something like:
,d/foo.pyo (where foo.py is a file name)
,d to open the tree, / to enter search mode, the name (or partial name, or regex, or whatever) of the file, and then o to open.
Of course you may have to hit 'n' a few times if you didn't type enough of the filename or there are duplicates.
I admit it feels like a bit of a hack using NERDTree like this although it has gotten so far into my muscle memory by now that I don't even think about it.
Of course I use ctags too but those are only useful when you have a function near the cursor and need to get to its definition in another file or something. A lot of times I say "OK, I need to work on feature x now" and need to navigate to another file without any references nearby that ctags would really help with.
I'm using two plugins of mine:
searchInRuntime that completes filenames on command line. It is somehow similar to fuzzyfinder and lookupfile,
lh-tags which is completely experimental and undocumented. It offers two features: automatic and quick update of the tagfile on file save(ing?), and a tag selector plugged to <c-w><m-down> by default. You may want to check the renowned taglist plugin instead.
Both require my viml library lh-vim-lib.
Try SourceCodeObedinece. This one I developed to handle C++ 1Gb source files project.
I use it in pair with 0scan.
These two plugins are wrappers around the most popular Vim browsing tools: ctags and cscope.
What are some options for getting really fast 'Find in Files' searching in VIM?
Our codebase is large enough that searching needs to work off an index. grep/vimgrep/etc are too slow.
Indexing doesn't need to be particularly fast; I can index overnight.
Thanks,
[EDIT] I'm also working in a Windows environment.
If it's source code (rather than full text search), then ctags with the TagList plugin should work well for your needs. See, for example:
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/04/ctags-taglist-vi-vim-editor-as-sourece-code-browser/
EDIT: TagList and ctags will work on Windows as well (that's what I use). See the TagList install page and FAQ. The following links might prove useful:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=273
http://vim-taglist.sourceforge.net/installation.html
http://vim-taglist.sourceforge.net/faq.html
There's also a TagList forum where you can get further help:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/taglist/
I set it up on my windows machine a while back, but I don't remember encountering any problems.
Something that I use, but not through vim, is ack: http://betterthangrep.com/
It is a perl based tool, and it should be usable in Windows.
If you're working with a large codebase, then it might be time to look for a more powerful solution than conventional tools. OpenGrok is a very fast source code search and cross-reference engine. On top of its great performance, it integrates with Subversion, Mercurial, and ClearCase, among other source revision control software. It sounds a lot like something you could use.
If you want support to use OpenGrok from within Vim, you could easily write a vim function that would call system() to start the search for you. To read more about writing new vim commands, look up :help 40.2 within vim.
I hope that's what you were looking for.
I don't know how I found this, but looks like someone has written a plugin for google desktop
Try to install https://github.com/mileszs/ack.vim, http://beyondgrep.com/ ,
then make a link
ln -s /usr/bin/ack-grep /usr/bin/ack
and add
noremap <C-f> :copen<CR>:Ack -aQi --ignore-dir someignoringdir
to your .vimrc, after you can find in files through Ctrl+F, enjoy
_ /|
\'o.O'
=(___)=
U
You can try this
:vimgrep /something/ */
and dont forget to open search result window after
:cw