As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 11 years ago.
What are your favorite (G)Vim plugins/scripts?
Nerdtree
The NERD tree allows you to explore your filesystem and to open files and
directories. It presents the filesystem to you in the form of a tree which you
manipulate with the keyboard and/or mouse. It also allows you to perform
simple filesystem operations.
The tree can be toggled easily with :NERDTreeToggle which can be mapped to a more suitable key. The keyboard shortcuts in the NERD tree are also easy and intuitive.
Edit: Added synopsis
Tim Pope has some kickass plugins. I love his surround plugin.
Pathogen plugin and more things commented by Steve Losh
Taglist, a source code browser plugin for Vim, is currently the top rated plugin at the Vim website and is my favorite plugin.
I love snipMate. It's simular to snippetsEmu, but has a much better syntax to read (like Textmate).
A very nice grep replacement for GVim is Ack. A search plugin written in Perl that beats Vim's internal grep implementation and externally invoked greps, too. It also by default skips any CVS directories in the project directory, e.g. '.svn'. This blog shows a way to integrate Ack with vim.
A.vim is a great little plugin. It allows you to quickly switch between header and source files with a single command. The default is :A, but I remapped it to F2 reduce keystrokes.
I really like the SuperTab plugin, it allows you to use the tab key to do all your insert completions.
I have recently started using a plugin that highlights differences in your buffer from a previous version in your RCS system (Subversion, git, whatever). You just need to press a key to toggle the diff display on/off. You can find it here: http://github.com/ghewgill/vim-scmdiff. Patches welcome!
Elegant (mini) buffer explorer - This is the multiple file/buffer manager I use. Takes very little screen space. It looks just like most IDEs where you have a top tab-bar with the files you've opened. I've tested some other similar plugins before, and this is my pick.
TagList - Small file explorer, without the "extra" stuff the other file explorers have. Just lets you browse directories and open files with the "enter" key. Note that this has already been noted by previous commenters to your questions.
SuperTab - Already noted by WMR in this post, looks very promising. It's an auto-completion replacement key for Ctrl-P.
Desert256 color Scheme - Readable, dark one.
Moria color scheme - Another good, dark one. Note that it's gVim only.
Enahcned Python syntax - If you're using Python, this is an enhanced syntax version. Works better than the original. I'm not sure, but this might be already included in the newest version. Nonetheless, it's worth adding to your syntax folder if you need it.
Enhanced JavaScript syntax - Same like the above.
EDIT: Comments - Great little plugin to [un]comment chunks of text. Language recognition included ("#", "/", "/* .. */", etc.) .
Not a plugin, but I advise any Mac user to switch to the MacVim distribution which is vastly superior to the official port.
As for plugins, I used VIM-LaTeX for my thesis and was very satisfied with the usability boost. I also like the Taglist plugin which makes use of the ctags library.
clang complete - the best c++ code completion I have seen so far. By using an actual compiler (that would be clang) the plugin is able to complete complex expressions including STL and smart pointers.
No one said matchit yet ? Makes HTML / XML soup much nicer
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=39
Tomas Restrepo posted on some great Vim scripts/plugins. He has also pointed out some nice color themes on his blog, too. Check out his Vim category.
With version 7.3, undo branches was added to vim. A very powerful feature, but hard to use, until Steve Losh made Gundo which makes this feature possible to use with a ascii
representation of the tree and a diff of the change. A must for using undo branches.
Matrix Mode.
My latest favourite is Command-T. Granted, to install it you need to have Ruby support and you'll need to compile a C extension for Vim. But oy-yoy-yoy does this plugin make a difference in opening files in Vim!
Conque Shell : Run interactive commands inside a Vim buffer
Conque is a Vim plugin which allows you to run interactive programs, such as bash on linux or powershell.exe on Windows, inside a Vim buffer. In other words it is a terminal emulator which uses a Vim buffer to display the program output.
http://code.google.com/p/conque/
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2771
The vcscommand plugin provides global ex commands for manipulating version-controlled source files and it supports CVS,SVN and some other repositories.
You can do almost all repository related tasks from with in vim:
* Taking the diff of current buffer with repository copy
* Adding new files
* Reverting the current buffer to the repository copy by nullifying the local changes....
Just gonna name a few I didn't see here, but which I still find extremely helpful:
Gist plugin - Github Gists (Kind
of Githubs answer to Pastebin,
integrated with Git for awesomeness!)
Mustang color scheme (Can't link directly due to low reputation, Google it!) - Dark, and beautiful color scheme. Looks really good in the terminal, and even better in gVim! (Due to 256 color support)
One Plugin that is missing in the answers is NERDCommenter, which let's you do almost anything with comments. For example {add, toggle, remove} comments. And more. See this blog entry for some examples.
I like taglist and fuzzyfinder, those are very cool plugin
TaskList
This script is based on the eclipse Task List. It will search the file for FIXME, TODO, and XXX (or a custom list) and put them in a handy list for you to browse which at the same time will update the location in the document so you can see exactly where the tag is located. Something like an interactive 'cw'
I really love the snippetsEmu Plugin. It emulates some of the behaviour of Snippets from the OS X editor TextMate, in particular the variable bouncing and replacement behaviour.
Zenburn color scheme and good fonts - [Droid Sans Mono](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_(font)) on Linux, Consolas on Windows.
If you're on a Mac, you got to use peepopen, fuzzyfinder on steroids.
I use the following two plugins all the time:
project
vimoutliner
For vim I like a little help with completions. Vim has tons of completion modes, but really, I just want vim to complete anything it can, whenver it can.
I hate typing ending quotes, but fortunately this plugin obviates the need for such misery.
Those two are my heavy hitters.
This one may step up to roam my code like an unquiet shade, but I've yet to try it.
Txtfmt (The Vim Highlighter)
Screenshots
The Txtfmt plugin gives you a sort of "rich text" highlighting capability, similar to what is provided by RTF editors and word processors. You can use it to add colors (foreground and background) and formatting attributes (all combinations of bold, underline, italic, etc...) to your plain text documents in Vim.
The advantage of this plugin over something like Latex is that with Txtfmt, your highlighting changes are visible "in real time", and as with a word processor, the highlighting is WYSIWYG. Txtfmt embeds special tokens directly in the file to accomplish the highlighting, so the highlighting is unaffected when you move the file around, even from one computer to another. The special tokens are hidden by the syntax; each appears as a single space. For those who have applied Vince Negri's conceal/ownsyntax patch, the tokens can even be made "zero-width".
tcomment
"I map the "Command + /" keys so i can just comment stuff out while in insert mode
imap :i
Related
Vim is a nice editor and I use it for many tasks.
However, when it comes to start working on a new (possibly huge) codebase, I don't feel comfortable using it to go around the code with the objective of understanding how things work.
For example, if I want to see where a C++ function is used, I can :vimgrep for that function in every **/*.cpp files and :copen the quickfix window to jump on every occurrence... of that string.
If I do the same with e.g. Eclipse (call hierarchy of a C++ method), that will not be just a string, but a C++ method defined in an object, so I will get a precise indication of the usages of that function (and not also a function with the same name defined in another class).
So the question is, how to make vim a powerful tool to analyze code?
Subquestions:
Are there any vim plugins designed for this?
Does it make sense to use vim to only analyze code? Probably external tools (e.g.: OpenGrok) can do the job?
Vim is a text editor. What you want is almost completely orthogonal to editing text and completely outside of Vim's own abilities.
However, Vim is quite good at using external tools like ctags and cscope for navigating within a project. Supposing you have created a tags file and/or a cscope.out database, Vim has a bunch of commands you can use to "jump to definition", "jump to usage", etc.: :ts[elect] foo, <C-]> over a function name and so on… You can find all the info you need in :h ctags and :h cscope.
If you are curious, GNU GLOBAL is another alternative. Another pro of cscope is that it comes with its own TUI that you can use in your shell.
The only plugin offering a cscope (+ ctags) interface I know of is CCTree which seems to be limited to C.
There are a bunch of ctags oriented plugins like TagBar or TagList you could try but note that, while ctags is limited to definitions, cscope can also do usage and callers.
You should keep in mind that these tools are code indexers: you shouldn't expect them to "understand" your code or be even remotely as precise as IDE tools. However I love Vim, I'd suggest you use a tool better suited to that task than a text editor.
When I switched from Netbeans to Vim, I felt the same as you. I missed Netbeans feature to see any function definition upon a right click. Disclaimer: I use Ruby, Javascript mainly and sometimes PHP
I tried ctags, but found it is not so accurate and not so clean. I also tried plugins Tagbar and Taglist using together with ctags. Tagbar is a bit heavy in my opinion, takes lot of CPU and memory when handling tags. Taglist is better, but the best use case is to browse long files instead of tags.
Finally I gave up using ctags.
Later I found there are better solutions specific to language. For example, for Ruby there is a plugin to show ri doc of any function within installed gems(libs), with only one key.
But I still don't use that often as my habit already changed. I like things to be lean, to be in there right places, and to be fast.
Now I feel comfortable by:
Using tmux together with Vim. Check doc and verify code in console when needed.
Use snippet plugin(Neosnippet) to store frequently used codes, methods. The snippets management in Vim is far better and flexible than any IDE I've seen.
Use brain to store more, with less touching of mouse.
Hope these help.
There is a plugin called fly.vim that is super awesome to browse source code. It makes use of a cscope database and provides simple navigation mechanism. Combine it with autotags plugin that generates and maintains cscope and ctags for a project in a central location, and you can switch between different code bases with ease.
I was using Source Insight to browse the Linux Kernel source code and when I switched over to this combination, I had nothing to complain. It may take some time and/or effort to get in speed with this setup, though. If you know how ctags and cscope work, then, probably you'll pick it up in less than an hour. But the advantages: cscope indexes code fast, vim uses cscope fast, fly.vim queries through cscope and displays it fast, and in a usable format. Plus, it maintains jump history.
Of course the fact that you can refactor on IDEs is priceless for many, I hardly ever do it when I am coding but I may try to do it when editing some one else's source. How do you accomplish such a trivial task across multiple files in Vim?
I found this plugin for refactoring Ruby, but how about "any" language?
I agree with the 'Vim is not an IDE' paradigm. But there are times when there isn't an IDE. Here's what I use in those situations:
Disclaimer: The ubiquity of Language Server Protocol servers, linters and fixers since I wrote this have also brought some great refactoring capabilities to Vim (and other editors). IMO they are a long way from equaling the capabilities of a purpose-built IDE (I prefer ALE and nvim-lspconfig for these kinds of features). See other answers on this question for more info!
:grep, :vimgrep, :GrepperAg, :Ggrep
Refactoring that has more to do with regular replacements I usually use :grep on my project tree and then record a macro to do the refactor - :g and :s are no brainers. Usually it'll let me quickly modify a large number of files with very little effort. Honestly, I use this method more than any other.
Depending on your workflow the built-in commands might be slow/inconvenient. If you use git, then you'll wanna use the excellent Fugitive plugin and its :Ggrep command to only search files checked into git. I also like the vim-grepper because it is search-tool-agnostic (supports ag, sift, ripgrep, etc) and speedy.
:argdo, :cdo, and :bufdo
:cdo and :argdo are handy to execute vim commands over a set of files.
command line
When it's harder to determine the list of files that need changes via :vimgrep I resort to the command line grep/find commands to more closely curate the list of files that I need to refactor. Save the list to a text file and use :e and a mashup of macro recordings to make the changes I need to make.
I find that the less rusty I keep my macro recording skills the more useful I find Vim for refactoring: feeling comfortable saving/restoring from registers, incrementing/decrementing register counter variables, cleaning/saving macro recordings to file for later use, etc.
Update
Since writing this more videocasts for the methods I describe have been published on vimcasts.org (I encourage you to watch ALL the Vimcasts!). For refactoring watch these ones:
Substitution with :Subvert
Project wide search/replace
Search multiple files with :vimgrep
Use :argdo to change multiple files
Vimgolf is also a great way to practice.
Language Server Protocol (LSP)
The Language server protocol contains the feature for smart renaming of symbols across a project:
https://microsoft.github.io//language-server-protocol/specifications/specification-3-14/#textDocument_rename
For example following language server support this:
Clangd for C++
ccls for C/C++/Objective-C
Eclipse.jdt.ls for Java
pyls (with rope) for Python
tsserver for TypeScript
Solargraph for Ruby
gopls official lsp for Go (alpha stage in Nov 2019)
texlab for LaTeX
You can find more language servers under https://langserver.org/.
Vim
A vim editor client is necessary to use them within vim. Following options exist:
LanguageClient-neovim (requires rust) suggests the mapping:
nnoremap <silent> <F2> :call LanguageClient_textDocument_rename()<CR>
coc.nvim (requires node.js) suggests the mapping:
" Remap for rename current word
nmap <leader>rn <Plug>(coc-rename)
Ale has
nnoremap <silent> <Plug>(ale_rename) :ALERename<Return>
Ale does not define any keybindings. This has to be done by the user.
vim-lsp provides following command
:LspRename
Similar to Ale no mapping is suggested. However, of course you can define one as following
nmap <leader>r <plug>(lsp-rename)
(<leader>r is to be replaced by your choice; I do not know one which most plugins agree on)
vim-lsc has a default mapping:
'Rename': 'gR'
See also YouCompleteMe which facilitates LSPs as well.
Neovim
Neovim has initial builtin support for lsp since 13.11.2019
See for common configurations of LSPs the project nvim-lspconfig which suggests <space>rn as a mapping for vim.lsp.buf.rename().
Other Refactorings
I do not know if there are plans for the LSP protocol to support more complex refactorings, such as changing class structure, adding parameters to methods/functions or moving a method to a different class. For a list of refactorings see https://refactoring.com/catalog/.
Python
For the python language following plugins provide 'smart' renaming capabilities for vim:
jedi-vim (github) <leader>r
ropevim (github) CTRL-c r r
python-mode (github) :h pymode-rope-refactoring
C-Family
Try the plugin Clighter for rename-refactoring for the c-family. It is based on clang, but there are limitations and the plugin is marked as deprecated.
Suggested mapping by Clighter is
nmap <silent> <Leader>r :call clighter#Rename()<CR>
Note, the successor plugin clighter8 has removed the renaming functionality in the commit 24927db42.
If you use neovim, you can take a look at the plugin clamp. It suggests
nmap <silent> <Leader>r :call ClampRename()<CR>
Maybe not the most elegant solution, but I found it very handy: I use ECLIM to connect VIM and Eclipse. Of course all my source code editing is done in VIM, but when it's time to refactor, one can take advantage of Eclipse's superior cababilities in this matter.
Give it a try.
I wrote this plugin for generic refactoring. It still requires many improvements. Sometime in the future I'll try to abandon ctags in favour of clang for C&C++ refactorings.
Plugin YouCompleteMe (YCM) (20k stars on github)
http://ycm-core.github.io/YouCompleteMe/#the-refactorrename-new-name-subcommand
:h RefactorRename-new-name
In supported file types, this command attempts to perform a semantic
rename of the identifier under the cursor. This includes renaming
declarations, definitions and usages of the identifier, or any other
language-appropriate action. The specific behavior is defined by the
semantic engine in use.
Similar to FixIt, this command applies automatic modifications to your
source files. Rename operations may involve changes to multiple files,
which may or may not be open in Vim buffers at the time. YouCompleteMe
handles all of this for you. The behavior is described in the
following section.
Supported in filetypes: c, cpp, objc, objcpp, cuda, java, javascript,
typescript, rust, cs
By default there is no mapping.
Plugin Factorus
There is another vim plugin dedicated for refactoring called factorus which is available on github.
Currently (2017-12), it supports the languages
c,
java, and
python.
Place cursor at name to refactor and type
gd (or gD if you're refactoring a global variable).
Then
cgn new_name esc
and
. one or more times to refactor next occurrence(s)
or
:%norm . to refactor all occurrences in the buffer at once.
I write a lot of C/C++ code in vim. The most common refactoring that I do is renaming variables, class names, etc. Usually, I use :bufdo :%s/source/dest/g to do a search/replace in files, which is almost the same as renaming provided by big IDE's.
However, in my case, I found that I usually rename similar entities, spelled in different cases (i.e CamelCase, snake_case, etc.), so I decided to write a small utility to help with this kind of "smart-case" search/replace, it is hosted here. It is a command-line utility, not a plugin for vim, I hope that you can find it useful.
Go
The tool godoctor (github) supports several refactoring capabilities
Rename
Extract Function
Extract Local Variable
Toggle var ⇔ :=
Add Godoc stubs
There is a vim plugin https://github.com/godoctor/godoctor.vim which makes them available
With cursor in thing to rename:
:Rename <newname>
Highlighting block to extract:
:Refactor extract newfunc
vim-go
Precise type-safe renaming of identifiers with :GoRename.
Language server gopls
https://github.com/golang/tools/blob/master/gopls/doc/status.md#rename
For refactoring, if you're using Unite (and you should), you can then use vim-qfreplace and make it extremely easy. Check this video that demonstrates how it works. Once your workflow is set, you can make some mappings to optimize it (instead of typing most things like in the video).
A combination of two plugins: vim-ripgrep, to find across files and put the results in the quickfix window, and quickfix-reflector to save the changes right in the quickfix window and have it automatically save each change across the files.
I would consider using the spacemacs version of emacs. It is uses the same modes and most keystrokes as Vim but has many more add-on because of it's lisp nature. If you want to program in C++ you just add the c++ layer and most of the IDE is just set up for you already. For other interpreted languages like python or bash you do not need to leave spacemacs to use them. They even have a way to run blocks of code directly within your text which works fantastic for literate programming or reproducible programming where the code and the data are in the same file. Both done as text.
Spacemacs is much more heavy handed in it's initial load but the additional stuff you can do with it is worth the few seconds of startup cost. One layer org-mode is worth checking it out. It is the best outliner, programmer, day timer / todo list I have ever used.
The CoC addon has (among other features) the ability to rename variables.
https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim
" Symbol renaming.
nmap <leader>rn <Plug>(coc-rename)
Recently I've been trying my hand at using vim instead of TextMate and one of the features that I've missed most in VIM is TextMate's jump to method function (CMD + Shift + T for those who don't know). From looking around I havn't seen any particular way to emulate this functionality and was wondering if anyone here has had experience with this sort of functionality in VIM.
Thanks in advance for any answers
Patrick
You're looking for vim's 'tags' functionality ... I answered a similar question about tags here: How to implement own tag jump in VIM with CTRL-]?
This functionality has been implemented in fuzzyfinder using :FufBufferTag. See the ticket
I'd love to hear good suggestions as I use Vim all the time but haven't used TextMate. I do the following things which slightly overlap.
Search for d-e-f-space-<first few letters of function name>. So to go to function foo (in Python or Ruby, and within the same file of course), I type /def fo and I'm there. I also have incremental search enabled in Vim.
Use marks for functions which I visit often. So I'll ma at the function definition and then 'a back to it later. I know it's not function definitions but it is a crutch.
you can create a tags file with ctags http://ctags.sourceforge.net/
basically $ctags -R
Then once you're in vim :set tags=/path/to/tagsfile
this will also be any tag so not just class names, methods, etc. In normal mode ctrl-] on the method/class/ and it will jump to that position.
You can also use the taglist plugin which will display current tags in a side window. ctags
I had pretty much the same problem and I found a quick and dirty solution (paste this in your .vimrc and call by typing :LS)
function! s:ListFunctions()
vimgrep /function/j %
copen
endfunction
command! -bar -narg=0 LS call s:ListFunctions()
If you require more functionality then Exuberant Ctags will do better for you
I'm using CommandT for file searching, then / to search for a particular function. However, the real issue is with CSS. Cmd Shift T in Textmate enable quick jumps to a particular CSS class, and that is a huge time-saver.
CTags doesn't support CSS parsing, unless you re-compile with a patch (found via google), but I'm not even sure if we can do fuzzy searching for CSS classes like in Textmate. I really miss the Cmd Shift T feature.
I've written a TextMate Bundle command (you can easily assign it to Ctrl+] for example) that lookup for the definition of the class or method under the caret and displays it in a tooltip, along with the file name and the line where it was find.
Check it out: Add a shortcut to TextMate to lookup a class or method definition in a tooltip
Hope you'll find it useful!
The feature described in this question has many different names depending on the IDE/Editor:
In Resharper it's called "Goto File member"
In Sublime Text 2 it's called "Goto Symbol"
In PyCharm it's called "Goto Symbol"
The feature is essentially the same though in all of the above implementations (and I assume it's very similar in TextMate as well). The feature brings up an interactive list of methods/functions (and potentially also includes member variables/properties).
The list allows interactive filtering by typing the name of a methods/functions/etc. The list also usually allows the use of arrow keys to select a method/function/etc. Hitting the enter key with a method/function/etc selected navigates to the line in the current file where the selected method/function/etc is defined.
Of all the existing answers in this question the only one that I see which seems to provide a reasonably similar implementation of this feature is to use the command:
:FufBufferTag
in vim's FuzzyFinder plugin.
The answer which suggests using the taglist plugin is not a good solution, because the functionality offered by the taglist plugin is quite different from the feature. The taglist plugin offers similar functionality - the ability to view an outline of methods in the currently file, but it does not offer an interactive way to filter that list in realtime. The taglist plugin does allow you to search the tag buffer, but that's not nearly as convenient as the "Goto symbol" functionality offered in other editors.
I wanted to provide an alternative suggestion here, which is to use the command:
:CtrlPBufTag
in the excellent Ctrlp vim plugin. In my opinion this by far the best implementation of the "Goto Symbol" feature currently available in vim.
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
There are important features of Emacs which are missing in Vim, such as the comint mode, and there are no scripts/plugins which can replace them.
There are also benefits of Vim over Emacs, such as modal editing and generally better default shortcuts. However, Viper mode gets me both. Vimpulse also enables visual mode.
Unfortunately, no mode can make Emacs work as fast as Vim.
So I mostly learned Vim-in-Emacs. What Vim features am I missing?
I'm a regular vim user but not an emacs user and haven't used vimpulse to confirm this.
But browsing the vimpulse code below I see no mention of text objects.
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/vimpulse.el
Vim introduced some very useful idioms for selection and movement that aren't in regular vi
cat 'cut around tag' for xml/html tags
diw 'delete in word'
di( di" delete text within a "" () etc.
in the vim help see :he text-objects for more.
Unfortunately, no mode can make Emacs work as fast as Vim.
If you mean that the emacs startup time is poor, you can cut it down dramatically by having an emacs session permanently open, and use gnuclient/emacsclient whenever you need to edit a file.
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnuClient
One vi feature that I miss in emacs is the . (dot) command that repeats the last edit. There is dot-mode.el which implements C-. to simulate this but it didn't always work for me (I am not proficient in elisp to figure out why).
Even viper doesn't implement this command exactly like vi does (last time I checked), and even if it does, I don't think that is enough for me to start using viper.
To get a complete list of what vimpulse may be missing type
:helpgrep not in Vi
Every feature in the help that is not vi compatible will be listed.
Theres about 700 matches.
Of course there will be a lot of duplicated functionality
Vi motion everywhere - in Vi you can always navigate using the same shortcuts, whether you are inside a directory listing, a help file, a write only file or something you're allowed to edit.
Correct visual and delete behaviour - very similar to emacs marking but idiomatically different, so difficult for a Vi user to retrain. If you're already used to the emacs marking you're not really missing anything.
Correct escape behaviour - should cancel all other modal activity and return you to command mode. Again, if you're comfortable in emacs you're probably used to having modal inputs and such anyway.
The obvious chestnuts about Vi being deployed on every nix system in the world (Gentoo purists correct me?) - not a very strong argument in my eyes anyway.
Those are the ones that sprang out during my use of emacs+viper.
Vim macros don't seem to work with viper/vimpulse:
Vim macros don't work when using viper + vimpulse in Emacs
(Btw, the killer emacs feature that makes me care about vim/vimpulse is that different frames can edit the same file. It's like having a split where the two pieces can be in different windows. If anyone knows how to accomplish that in vim, you'd be my hero.)
Incremental search using / and ? is missing.
Being a lover of emacs as an OS and vi as an input model, naturally I wanted to love viper. However within two seconds of using it I had to give it up: viper does not support C-[ as a substitute for the escape key–which is an essential shortcut for the most frequently used command in vi.