Tagged Questions

0
votes
3answers
52 views

Text editor with indented word wrapping

I've been using Notepad++ in windows for a while and it has a cool feature for word wrapping so that the wrapped text is indented. That is the start of the sentence starts at column 1, but wrapped ...
3
votes
3answers
98 views

vi / vim - how to automatically strip trailing spaces on save?

Is there a .vimrc setting to automatically remove trailing whitespace when saving a file? Ideally (to be safe) I would like to only have this functionality for certain files, e.g. *.rb
0
votes
1answer
54 views

vi / vim - extra indents when pasting text? [duplicate]

I can copy characters in other apps such as browsers with ctrlc. I can then press i to enter insert mode in vim and press shiftctrlv to paste the text in. The problem is that each line gets indented ...
3
votes
2answers
47 views

vim shortcut to open a file under cursor in an already opened window

In vim you can open a file under the cursor by using the gf command. One can also easily open that file in a new split window by hitting <c-w> f. This is a really nice and time saving feature. ...
0
votes
1answer
31 views

Select line not selecting whitespace

Is there a way to select (or paste) text without trailing/ending whitespace? eg. To copy the whole line I press y, to paste it somewhere else I use p, but it pastes the whole text with the trailing ...
7
votes
1answer
140 views

Vim: Making XML text “pretty”

Is there an easy way within vi to make your XML text "pretty"? For example: I want this.. <person> <name>Nick</name> <age>26</age> ...
3
votes
1answer
64 views

How to display the permissions of a new file in the status line of the Vim editor?

With the following piece of code I get the permissions for an existing file: augroup Get_file_perm autocmd! autocmd BufWinEnter,FileChangedShell * let w:file_perm=getfperm(expand('%:p')) augroup ...
4
votes
2answers
167 views

Modeless vs modal editors

I just started learning Linux and all my previous experience of programming has been using the Windows platform. I came across Vim editor and read that it is modal editor unlike notepad which is ...
1
vote
5answers
92 views

vim automatic substitution

I have the following lines: '0, '1, '2, '3, How to put quote before the comma? I've tried the following so far: %s/[0-9],/&/g so & here replaces the matched pattern...
2
votes
5answers
632 views

Comment all lines in a text file?

In a text file I need to comment out all lines by adding a ";" as first character of each line. What is a good way to do this? I thought of Vim's visual block mode, but I couldn't find a "select all" ...
9
votes
3answers
363 views

How to set on executable bit for a particular file automatically

I want that when i make create a particular file, suppose i create it in vim editor, the created file should get executable permission as well when it gets created . I want this as i am creating some ...
3
votes
3answers
273 views

vi/vim, how can I write out a number of lines to a new file

I have a bunch of lines that I want to write out to a different file. How can I do that?
2
votes
1answer
130 views

Beep when typing backslash in cvim normal mode

I installed the cvim plugin for vim. Almost all the cvim commands start with '\'. But I when enter this character in normal mode, all I hear is a beep. Nothing happens. What might be causing this ...
1
vote
4answers
375 views

Advantages (or downsides) of GVim over Vim to edit code

Should I install vim or GVim ? I develop mainly Ruby on Rails (I also use IDE's, but different topic). Are there any differences or advantage of using Gvim vs vim ?
6
votes
2answers
742 views

How different is Elvis from Vim?

I've been using Slackware for a while now, which ships with Elvis as its default editor. Most other Linux distributions seem to ship with Vim, instead of Elvis. Having gotten quite used to Elvis, ...
8
votes
3answers
1k views

Advantages of using set -o vi

I have seen many developers using this command to set the option to vi. I never understood the real use of this? When using bash commands, what help does switching to vi provide?
2
votes
1answer
63 views

!fmt for current line only

When I want to format part of text with fmt in vim I usually select parts of interesting lines in Visual Mode, with: Ctrl+V Arrows, and than type !+f+m+t. When there are couple of lines they are ...
4
votes
2answers
568 views

How to install light-weight vim and to be able to efficiently load files into one instance vim?

On my laptop with Ubuntu I'm able to have just one instance of vim, launched with vim --servername VIM After this I'm able to open files from console with vim --remote-silent filename I use ...
2
votes
2answers
231 views

Specify an alias as preferred editor in rc files (like .cvsrc)?

I have in my .cvsrc: cvs -q -e vim I want to create an alias (like my-vim or something like that): alias my-vim="vim -S ~/myscript.vim" And do cvs -q -e my-vim Unfortunately, this doesn't ...
13
votes
3answers
3k views

Buffers or tabs in vim? What are advantages/disadvantages of each approach?

I'm used to modeless editors. Only the past year I've been using vim/gvim, which has a modal approach. I'm used to tabs in all editors, since before vim all of them are used to it. In gvim, you don't ...
2
votes
2answers
285 views

How to turn off permanent highlighting of all braces (not just pairs) in vim

I have no idea how I modified vim such that all braces are highlighted, not just matching ones, but I want to turn it off now. How do I do that? The usual highlighting of matching braces works fine.
6
votes
4answers
5k views

How do I quit from Vi?

I started Vi on my Ubuntu machine. However I don't know Vi, and now I can not quit. I see the editor and I can write text, at the bottom line there is a label "recording". How do I quit from Vi?
105
votes
14answers
25k views

vim vs. emacs… and no, this is not a flame war

How would you compare these editors? What are the pros and cons of each? [note] This is not meant to be answered by those who "hate one and love another" or those who haven't used both.