Vim Users Super Thread

[Inny]

The best start is to run vimtutor. It'll take you maybe 20 minutes.

Here's an online version: http://www.openvim.com/tutorial.html

[Germanunkol]

I'm currently switching back and forth daily between Vim for Lua/Löve and Code-Blocks for C++.
While I really also like codeblocks, I keep on missing the vim modes and hotkeys there.

Does anyone have any experience with making vim into a "full" c++ IDE? I would like:
- No huge amount of configuring and installing
- As little extra stuff/window as possible, since I want to use it for c++ AND Lua
- Code auto-completion on known names
- "file browser", for easy jumping between the project cpp and header files
- large display of current file, with multiple files being open (split view, but with the other open buffers being displayed very small, only the current one should be large)
- debugging using gdb?

I'll probably have to write my own make files anyways, so g++ doesn't need to be tied into vim, but a hotkey for "make and run" would be pretty.

[bartbes]

I'd recommend the clang_complete, syntastic, NERDtree and taglist plugins, together with ctags. With regards to making, :make does what you want, you can map it to whatever you want, of course.

[Germanunkol]

Perfect. All of those are great, I just installed them - thanks for getting me started!

How do you debug, though? There seem to be lots of options; does anyone have any experience?

[Inny]

I never figured out how to get breakpoints into running Love code, so i settled for good practice (like using strict.lua to catch most of the typos)

[bartbes]

I personally just run valgrind and gdb in my terminal, that said, I can recommend tmux (and consequently tslime.vim, though that is more useful for lua than c).

[andmatand]

I still use arrows for movement.

whaaaaa??! for me (and I thought most people, but maybe not?) this is like the main reason I use Vim, so I can keep my hands in the same place on the keyboard and I don't have to move over to the arrow keys...

Quick way to switch between hidden buffers. This is one of those things that trips up people when using vim, since they expect vim Tabs to work the way Tabs work in other editors.

I've always just used the tabs (:tabe) feature that Vim has built in (and they look even prettier in gVim). Is there an advantage to using buffers not in tabs?

I've used Vim for years, but I seem to still always find features or better ways of doing things that I never knew about

[Inny]

Well, I tend to move about mostly with Word End Back Till Forward /search and start editing with insert after and After, so individual character movement tends to be more of a "i don't know where I am" thing.

As for using buffers, I use window-splits a lot, and Tabs are considered a way to save what the tab orderings are. Switching tabs changes both views, which isn't what I want. So yeah, hidden buffers is my way to go. But since vim configurations are such a personal thing, that if your workflow works for you, more power to you, keep it up.

[beavis]

Hi,

I am setting up VIM for lua development. Does anyone have expierence with those plugins:

Plugin 'xolox/vim-lua-ftplugin'
Plugin 'xolox/vim-lua-inspect'
Plugin 'xolox/vim-easytags'
Plugin 'WolfgangMehner/lua-support'

- No huge amount of configuring and installing

This is not the vim way...

Is there an advantage to using buffers not in tabs?

Every Tab is new instance of vim.

Recommended plugins are youcompleteme (is a fast, as-you-type, fuzzy-search code completion engine) and ctrlp (Full path fuzzy file, buffer, mru, tag, ... finder for Vim). I use them for every project.

[davisdude]

Hey!
No experience with any of the plugins above (although they do look useful), but I find these plugins useful enough for most all of my needs:
- love-Launch (made by yours truly, feel free to give any feedback). This allows you to run your current LOVE project from Vim without switching files or anything like that.
- UltiSnips. Very nifty and powerful. Allows you to type certain commands in insert mode and expand them.