Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 01:45:53PM -0400, AK wrote: I'm working on a plugin right now that I think allows a much more flexible and easy way to store and lookup notes, snips and references. It uses an sqlite database ... Ahem ... cough ... splutter, the whole _purpose_ of vim-edited plain text notes is to keep them in a flat file, and avoid like the plague, any additional hocus-pocus, _especially_ databases. (And GUIs, and images. In 15 years, there's never been any reason or temptation to involve any of it.) Sorry, but I find it impossible to comprehend how it can really be easier than a two-character alias to vim ~/unix/Help, and I'm in with vim! ;-) Good luck with it though, if it satisfies your needs. Erik -- Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. - George Bernard Shaw -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Hi Tony, Thanks for your answer. Sorry, I hadn't noticed you are still on Vim 7.2. No problem. In that case I recommend to upgrade. See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_the_Vim_source_with_Mercurial http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compunix.htm about how to get the latest source and compile it. By default, your new executable will install in /usr/local/bin which should be earlier in the $PATH than the Vim executable from Debian. Well, to be honest, I don't feel like compiling from source. I like the stability of Debian stable and it's easiness to update when needed. And version 7.2 is enough for my own work. I just wanted to see what :h helphelp.txt was saying. By the way, I installed the latest version on a windows machine and had a look; nothing really new for me. Have a nice day, Steve -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 12/04/11 11:00, Steve wrote: Hi Tony, Thanks for your answer. Sorry, I hadn't noticed you are still on Vim 7.2. No problem. In that case I recommend to upgrade. See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_the_Vim_source_with_Mercurial http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compunix.htm about how to get the latest source and compile it. By default, your new executable will install in /usr/local/bin which should be earlier in the $PATH than the Vim executable from Debian. Well, to be honest, I don't feel like compiling from source. I like the stability of Debian stable and it's easiness to update when needed. And version 7.2 is enough for my own work. I just wanted to see what :h helphelp.txt There is a copy of the help online, but alas, it is still the Vim 7.2 version of the help. :-( was saying. By the way, I installed the latest version on a windows machine and had a look; nothing really new for me. Have a nice day, Steve Best regards, Tony. -- The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself. -- Oscar Wilde -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Tue, April 12, 2011 11:18 am, Tony Mechelynck wrote: :h helphelp.txt There is a copy of the help online, but alas, it is still the Vim 7.2 version of the help. :-( http://vimhelp.appspot.com/helphelp.txt.html regards, Christian -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Le 12-04-2011, à 12:04:07 +0200, Christian Brabandt (cbli...@256bit.org) a écrit : On Tue, April 12, 2011 11:18 am, Tony Mechelynck wrote: :h helphelp.txt There is a copy of the help online, but alas, it is still the Vim 7.2 version of the help. :-( http://vimhelp.appspot.com/helphelp.txt.html Thanks guys, you were really not obliged ;-) I'm currently reading and practicing the vimtutor (which I did years ago), and it's funny to see what (bad) habits I picked up. For instance, to go to the first line of a file, I type(d): :1 forgetting that gg does the same thing. Another example is the replacement of caracters. I used to put the cursor right after the wrong caracter, then go in insert mode, then hit the RETURN key, and finally type the right caracter. A long way to do such a imple thing. Vim suggest to just hit r then the correct caracter, and that's it. And so on for the example. The only thing with which I have problem is the movement keys, hjkl. I'm so used to the arrow keys that I get cramps in my fingers when putting them on those hjkl keys (and I'm not that old :-)). Thnaks for all the nice help. Have a nice day, Steve PS: I use vim for simple programming (some php, bash, python) but also for email editing, LaTeX, and so forth. I just cannot imagine using anything else. Ah yes, I sometimes use nano to copy paste code in a new file. With vim, the whole code formatting is not kept. For instance, I get something like this: for i in a b c d e f do echo $i done So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it yet. If you have any ideas, please share. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 06:41:34PM -0400, AK wrote:
On 04/11/2011 05:04 PM, Adam Monsen wrote:
Erik Christiansen wrote:
Simply capitalising keywords in the file allows rapid access to the
desired information
How does that work? Will you share an example?
Also, will you share your .vimrc?
I think Erik simply meant searching for Mykey will skip mykey and
thisismykey matches. -Rainyday
Yes, spot on, but a little more structure helps. To still allow use of
Mykey at the start of a sentence, I mostly use fullcaps and colons for
search keys. e.g. section headings:
VIM:
For subsections, I prefer mixed case headings, so either add a tag at
right, or search for ^Cursor or Cursor: subheadings:
Cursor:# In .vimrc: CURSOR:
:let loaded_matchparen = 1 Clobber confusing red blue crap
on ([{}]).
:NoMatchParen # From within vim.
MODE-INDICATING BICOLOUR CURSOR:
Appearance: (Insert_Mode == Green, Normal_Mode == Red)
if term =~ xterm
let t_SI = \Esc]12;green\x7
let t_EI = \Esc]12;red\x7
endif
---
Embedded search tags also harmlessly hang about on the right:
^]Jump to function/macro under cursor # With ctags CTAGS
:ts Tag select, from multiple tag matches.
g]ditto DEFINITION
^TAn easy way back.
So whether I think of ctags, or I want the function definition, I have
a search key to take me there immediately. (The file has all my unix
notes, and runs to 15,000 lines. With everything in one file, there's
only one place to look, and whether vim or awk offers a solution is just
How. I'm looking for What could solve my problem.)
I haven't gone to the extent of tweaking .vimrc, since these dead simple
tags have sufficed for over 15 years now, providing a shortcut to stuff
I think I might need again, and took too long to find the first time.
Erik
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manual, n.:
A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item.
One is on the shelf; someone has the others.
The information you need is in the others. -- Ray Simard
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Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it yet. If you have any ideas, please share. :set paste :h paste -- Magnus Woldrich m...@japh.se http://japh.se -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Le 12-04-2011, à 13:01:50 +0200, Magnus Woldrich (m...@japh.se) a écrit : So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it yet. If you have any ideas, please share. :set paste :h paste Brilliant! So simple. apt-get purge nano Thanks Have a nice day, Steve -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Tue, April 12, 2011 1:01 pm, Magnus Woldrich wrote: So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it yet. If you have any ideas, please share. :set paste :h paste See also the faq at: http://vimhelp.appspot.com/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-14.14 regards, Christian -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 12, 5:49 am, Steve dl...@bluewin.ch wrote:
The only thing with which I have problem is the
movement keys, hjkl. I'm so used to the arrow keys that I get cramps in
my fingers when putting them on those hjkl keys (and I'm not that
old :-)).
I probably use hjkl more than I realize, and I KNOW I use j and k too
much to go up/down lines, but in general I avoid h and l just because
there are many more efficient ways to move around. For example, I
mostly use the following depending on where I want to place the cursor
(approximately in order from most frequent to least):
* w, W, b, B , e, and E
* _ and g_ (I use Dvorak and these are easier to reach than ^ and $
which do mostly the same thing, but note subtle differences)
* f, F, t, T, ';', and ','
* [[ and ]]
* [(, ]), [{, ]}
* %
* CTRL-D and CTRL-U
* { and }
And of course, searches, where appropriate: *, #, gd, gD, n, N, and
the old stand-bys / and ?. But I don't consider these part of my
normal cursor movement commands.
See the :help for any of these, for example :help ; for what they
do. They are all normal-mode commands.
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Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 2011-04-12, Christian Brabandt wrote: On Tue, April 12, 2011 1:01 pm, Magnus Woldrich wrote: So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it yet. If you have any ideas, please share. :set paste :h paste See also the faq at: http://vimhelp.appspot.com/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-14.14 There should be another method in that list, perhaps 1.1: Some Linux distributions build their terminal vim packages without X support. This makes no sense and leaves many users with the impression that Vim in terminal mode doesn't support some operations such as properly pasting text with a mouse. If your distribution includes gvim, which it almost certainly does these days, the solutions to this include the following. a) Start Vim as gvim -v b) Put this alias in your shell's configuration file, e.g. ~/.bashrc: alias vim='gvim -v' c) Put the following command in a file named 'vim' and put that file in your ~/bin directory: gvim -v $@ d) Link the distribution's gvim to ~/bin/vim with the following command, which needs to be executed only once. ln -s $(which gvim) ~/bin/vim For c) and d), make sure that ~/bin precedes /usr/bin in your PATH. Regards, Gary -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/12/2011 06:52 AM, Erik Christiansen wrote: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 06:41:34PM -0400, AK wrote: On 04/11/2011 05:04 PM, Adam Monsen wrote: Erik Christiansen wrote: Simply capitalising keywords in the file allows rapid access to the desired information How does that work? Will you share an example? Also, will you share your .vimrc? I think Erik simply meant searching for Mykey will skip mykey and thisismykey matches. -Rainyday Yes, spot on, but a little more structure helps. To still allow use of Mykey at the start of a sentence, I mostly use fullcaps and colons for search keys. e.g. section headings: [snip] I'm working on a plugin right now that I think allows a much more flexible and easy way to store and lookup notes, snips and references. It uses an sqlite database and stores tags for each item and you can use a filter command that shows matching items on the fly as you type in tags, for example I can type in 'tag1' and it may show '120 matching items', (and first ~40 matches), then I can type in tag2 and it shows 5 items that have both tags, then I can type '2' to load 2nd item in a new buffer. It also allows using tab for tag completion. The plugin uses python vim interface and also an external python plugin and django ORM to talk to sqlite (just because I'm used to it). It's a bit clunky and needs a lot more testing but I can put it up if anyone's interested. -Rainyday -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Hi Gary! On Di, 12 Apr 2011, Gary Johnson wrote: On 2011-04-12, Christian Brabandt wrote: On Tue, April 12, 2011 1:01 pm, Magnus Woldrich wrote: So when copy pasting a long part of code, it's not very convenient. But I'm sure there is a way to do that also with vim. Just didn't find it yet. If you have any ideas, please share. :set paste :h paste See also the faq at: http://vimhelp.appspot.com/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-14.14 There should be another method in that list, perhaps 1.1: Some Linux distributions build their terminal vim packages without X support. This makes no sense and leaves many users with the impression that Vim in terminal mode doesn't support some operations such as properly pasting text with a mouse. If your distribution includes gvim, which it almost certainly does these days, the solutions to this include the following. a) Start Vim as gvim -v b) Put this alias in your shell's configuration file, e.g. ~/.bashrc: alias vim='gvim -v' c) Put the following command in a file named 'vim' and put that file in your ~/bin directory: gvim -v $@ d) Link the distribution's gvim to ~/bin/vim with the following command, which needs to be executed only once. ln -s $(which gvim) ~/bin/vim For c) and d), make sure that ~/bin precedes /usr/bin in your PATH. Thanks! I updated it. regards, Christian -- -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 11, 2011, at 4:05 PM, Adam Monsen wrote: On 04/07/2011 06:13 PM, Eric Weir wrote: Hope to find some free time in the next few days just to mess around with it -- actually, to do the tutorial -- and maybe get over the initial hump of total bafflement. Based on your participation on this list, looks like you've got plenty of free time to learn Vim. :) There have been a lot of thoughtful responses, and I've just tried to at least thank as many as possible. Vim is an awesome tool for authors. It's very appealing to me. I may find that the learning curve is just too great. I may find that given my limited needs, it may not be that great at all. We'll see. Vim helps authors focus on content! I have experience with other software [MaxThink] that does the same. it's my primary need. Making things look pretty is not a major concern. I avoid getting caught up in it as much as possible. +1 to the many suggestions for using Vim to edit plain text or markup, then sending the text off to another tool for processing. One markup I like is AsciiDoc ( http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/). I'll check it out. An earlier respondent suggested LyX. Another suggested another markup system. LyX looked interesting. And then I could continue to use my word processors -- Pages and Nisus Writer -- for the minimal formatting I do. Do you play a musical instrument? Think of vimtutor like learning a very easy song on the piano. The first time you sit down, it takes a few hours to even hit the right notes. After sleeping on it for a night, maybe you can play all the notes, and maybe even on tempo. That's been my experience with the guitar. And with learning to use other software in the past. Hmm, searching google for vim for writers does reveal a few hits along these lines: * http://therandymon.com/woodnotes/vim-for-writers/vimforwriters.html * http://therandymon.com/content/view/189/98/ * http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/56506 Thanks for these. The first and last are interesting, especially the first. Regards, -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Main use of vim - preparing music scores with mup. Copying scores in is easiest with a spreadsheet, but once that's done it's over to vim to sort it all out Then comes drafting translations or new content for docs - using vim on a portable and writing mml to be finished with FrameMaker once I get home to the desktop. (mml is also the secret weapon for getting clean content out of certain proprietary word-processor formats) Thirdly, tagging plain-text for an .fb2 e-book reader - remembering, gratefully, the colleague who taught me about regex many years ago My take on the learning curve and the documentation? it's a bit tricky to learn vim _and_ editing at the same time, but if you come to vim because you know what you want to do and you're looking for a competent tool to do it ... my editor of choice. Quibbles? can't find a run to end of file for macros; and sometimes have problems with accented characters when I move a file between platforms, though that's not vim's fault. Niels Grundtvig Nielsen You know what you're talking about - I can help you say it www.kbss27.be -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Hi there,
Very interresting thread, but :
Le 09-04-2011, à 08:53:30 +0200, Tony Mechelynck (antoine.mechely...@gmail.com)
a écrit :
There is also, as I said before, help on using help, obtained by typing
:help helphelp.txt
Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt (my translation from French).
All the other online help seems available.
I'm running Debian stable with :
dpkg -l vim* | awk '{print $1\t$2\t$3}'
ii vim 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-addon-manager 0.4.3
ii vim-common 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-doc 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
un vim-gnome néant
ii vim-gtk 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-gui-common 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-latexsuite 20100129-2
un vim-lesstif néant
un vim-nox néant
un vim-perlnéant
un vim-python néant
un vim-rubynéant
ii vim-runtime 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-scripts 20091011
un vim-tcl néant
ii vim-tiny2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-vimoutliner 0.3.4+pristine-9
un vimoutliner néant
What am I missing?
PS: sorry to highjack this thread, but I felt it could be usefull to
others following it.
Thanks,
steve
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Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Mon, April 11, 2011 3:46 pm, Steve wrote:
Hi there,
Very interresting thread, but :
Le 09-04-2011, à 08:53:30 +0200, Tony Mechelynck
(antoine.mechely...@gmail.com) a écrit :
There is also, as I said before, help on using help, obtained by
typing
:help helphelp.txt
Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt (my translation from French).
All the other online help seems available.
I'm running Debian stable with :
dpkg -l vim* | awk '{print $1\t$2\t$3}'
ii vim 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-addon-manager 0.4.3
ii vim-common 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-doc 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
un vim-gnome néant
ii vim-gtk 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-gui-common 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-latexsuite 20100129-2
un vim-lesstif néant
un vim-nox néant
un vim-perlnéant
un vim-python néant
un vim-rubynéant
ii vim-runtime 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-scripts 20091011
un vim-tcl néant
ii vim-tiny2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
ii vim-vimoutliner 0.3.4+pristine-9
un vimoutliner néant
What am I missing?
I think helphelp.txt appeared with the release of vim 7.3
regards,
Christian
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Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 07:52, Magnus Woldrich m...@japh.se wrote: I use vim for everything. And I have vim-bindings in *every* application that I use. Here's my setup: Browser: Firefox with pentadactyl [6] Writing Mail: mutt, with editor set to vim 6: http://dactyl.sourceforge.net/pentadactyl/ You might want to look at Vimerator for Firefox and Muttator for Thunderbird. Actually, it was from Vimperator that I got into VIM. http://vimperator.org/ -- Dotan Cohen http://gibberish.co.il http://what-is-what.com -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Le 11-04-2011, à 15:49:08 +0200, Christian Brabandt (cbli...@256bit.org) a
écrit :
There is also, as I said before, help on using help, obtained by
typing
:help helphelp.txt
Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt (my translation from French).
All the other online help seems available.
I'm running Debian stable with :
dpkg -l vim* | awk '{print $1\t$2\t$3}'
ii vim 2 :7.2.445+hg~cb94c42c0e1a-1
What am I missing?
I think helphelp.txt appeared with the release of vim 7.3
Ok, thanks Christian.
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Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 10, 2011, at 8:55 PM, AK wrote: The way I think about this is.. it does have quite a learning curve and even though others will disagree, my feeling is that the documentation and help system are very, very far from ideal for a new user (although both are near perfect as a reference for dyed-in-the-wool user); however, it all makes sense if you intend to do a lot of text editing over the next 20+ years. Programming is becoming more available to non-programmers and that's something to keep in mind if not for tomorrow then for the day after tomorrow (possibility of catastrophic climate change notwithstanding). Thanks. Yes, I can see that the documentation -- help, manual, how-tos -- are excellent. But I agree with you that even with it its still pretty baffling for a new user, especially a nonprogrammer. In spite of all the helpful suggestions in response to my responses here, all my reading on various vim-related websites, and my scanning of the Oalline book, it wasn't until yesterday that I figured out how to open the manual pages. And even then it came as a result of a guess at something that might work. But, I don't want to get into complaining. Clearly, Vim is an outstanding editor and the documentation is outstanding as well. It's just that all that power carries with it a good measure of complexity. It takes time. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to drop all my current applications and go at Vim whole-hog and exclusively. I wish it were so. Two applications are especially hard to imagine leaving behind, even temporarily: [1] An editor/documents manager developed for writers, especially writers working on large projects, called Scrivener. [2] Apple Mail. None of the email clients I've experienced can hold a candle to Eudora as far as I'm concerned, but I am otherwise very satisfied with Mail. [There is one problem, one that's serious enough to make me wonder about other possibilities: Frequent intermittent hang-ups in sending mail. Fiddling with the outgoing server settings in random ways, combined with shutting Mail down and restarting it and rebooting the system, eventually gets it going. But there really is no way telling what will work. A particular setting will stop working. I find another that works, then it stops. I go back to the first one, and the mail starts going out. Very frustrating. And judging from the Apple forums, I'm not alone in experiencing this problem. Mutt is mentioned frequently here. I went looking for it, but apparently it's not available for Macs.] I also want to add that if I were using vim mainly for writing text, there's one plugin I would find particularly enticing: AutoCompletePopup (you can search for it on google or vim.org). It completes the words for you automatically as you type, and shows you a menu where you can use ctrl-n/p shorcuts to select the match. Some may find it annoying but once I got used to it I feel like it does 30% of the work for me and it doesn't require remembering any vim commands, so I think it's a really useful and sexy plugin for new users especially. I'll keep it in mind, though I should say that I found autocompletion on OpenOffice really irritating. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 11, 2011, at 2:11 AM, eNG1Ne wrote: My take on the learning curve and the documentation? it's a bit tricky to learn vim _and_ editing at the same time, but if you come to vim because you know what you want to do and you're looking for a competent tool to do it ... my editor of choice. Thanks. As I just said in my last response on this thread, I really do wish I could drop everything else and go Vim exclusively. Based on previous experience, I know I'd get to a minimally comfortable working level fairly quickly. [Barely skimming the surface of what Vim has to offer.] Unfortunately I can't do that. But I intend to stick with it, and to use it as much as possible. Recently, a response to a request for help here took the form of a string of characters, maybe ten of them, about an inch long, yet the solution was not a simple one. I like that. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 11/04/11 15:46, Steve wrote: Hi there, Very interresting thread, but : Le 09-04-2011, à 08:53:30 +0200, Tony Mechelynck (antoine.mechely...@gmail.com) a écrit : There is also, as I said before, help on using help, obtained by typing :help helphelp.txt Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt (my translation from French). All the other online help seems available. [...] Try :help helphelp and if even that doesn't work (meaning the French help is more than 6 months out of date) :help helphelp@en HTH, Tony. -- Really heard in court in the U.S.A.: Q.: Are you qualified to take a urine sample? A.: Are you qualified to ask this question? -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 11/04/11 17:27, Tony Mechelynck wrote: On 11/04/11 15:46, Steve wrote: Hi there, Very interresting thread, but : Le 09-04-2011, à 08:53:30 +0200, Tony Mechelynck (antoine.mechely...@gmail.com) a écrit : There is also, as I said before, help on using help, obtained by typing :help helphelp.txt Sorry, no help for helphelp.txt (my translation from French). All the other online help seems available. [...] Try :help helphelp and if even that doesn't work (meaning the French help is more than 6 months out of date) :help helphelp@en HTH, Tony. Sorry, I hadn't noticed you are still on Vim 7.2. In that case I recommend to upgrade. See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_the_Vim_source_with_Mercurial http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compunix.htm about how to get the latest source and compile it. By default, your new executable will install in /usr/local/bin which should be earlier in the $PATH than the Vim executable from Debian. Best regards, Tony. -- The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and add ten percent. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/07/2011 06:13 PM, Eric Weir wrote: Hope to find some free time in the next few days just to mess around with it -- actually, to do the tutorial -- and maybe get over the initial hump of total bafflement. Based on your participation on this list, looks like you've got plenty of free time to learn Vim. :) Vim is an awesome tool for authors. By authors I mean, for instance, authors of published works, like ebooks, paper books, and magazines published and sold at bookstores. But I consider programmers authors too. Code makes computers do things, but that's almost a side effect. The most important purpose of code is communicating with other programmers (including your future self). Vim helps authors focus on content! +1 to the many suggestions for using Vim to edit plain text or markup, then sending the text off to another tool for processing. One markup I like is AsciiDoc ( http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/). AsciiDoc uses a simple markup which can be processed in different ways depending on the desired result. You can make Web pages, beautiful ebooks, and professional-looking papers from the same (or very similar) source text. You can send off the plain text to publishers since they'll probably want to do their own layout anyway. AsciiDoc is easier to learn than LaTeX. Markups are generally easy to learn. If you're spending lots of time with the formatting and layout commands of a particular markup, you probably want something else that supports more absolute or visual layouts (like Inkscape or LibreOffice). I always prefer markup for the same reason I like Vim: it helps me focus on content over everything else. Do you play a musical instrument? Think of vimtutor like learning a very easy song on the piano. The first time you sit down, it takes a few hours to even hit the right notes. After sleeping on it for a night, maybe you can play all the notes, and maybe even on tempo. By the third day, you could even teach someone else the song. Once Vim gets into your muscle memory, productivity skyrockets. This also makes me think that there's a book or lecture waiting to be written: Vim for Non-Programmers or Vim for Authors. Hmm, searching google for vim for writers does reveal a few hits along these lines: * http://therandymon.com/woodnotes/vim-for-writers/vimforwriters.html * http://therandymon.com/content/view/189/98/ * http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/56506 -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Erik Christiansen wrote: Simply capitalising keywords in the file allows rapid access to the desired information How does that work? Will you share an example? Also, will you share your .vimrc? -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/11/2011 05:04 PM, Adam Monsen wrote: Erik Christiansen wrote: Simply capitalising keywords in the file allows rapid access to the desired information How does that work? Will you share an example? Also, will you share your .vimrc? I think Erik simply meant searching for Mykey will skip mykey and thisismykey matches. -Rainyday -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/07/2011 04:15 PM, Eric Weir wrote: I've downloaded and installed a copy of MacVim. I've peeked at a few of the help topics. [I'd like to run the tutorial, but haven't figured out how to do that, yet.] I'm not a programmer. Far from it. I'm intrigued for a least a couple reasons, the main one being the fact that Vim is command-driven, that everything's done from the keyboard. [My very first experience with an editor was with Wordstar on CPM, and I've missed doing everything from the keyboard ever since.] The outliner plugins appeal to me as well. [I was a long-time devote of MaxThink, running it in a DOS Window after moving to Windows from DOS, and in DOSBox under Linux and now on a Mac.] And so does the possibility of using it as a file manager as well as editor. Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? Thanks, -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net I am a programmer but I do use Vim for anything and everything, emails, authoring documentation, outlines, todo lists, you name it. The way I think about this is.. it does have quite a learning curve and even though others will disagree, my feeling is that the documentation and help system are very, very far from ideal for a new user (although both are near perfect as a reference for dyed-in-the-wool user); however, it all makes sense if you intend to do a lot of text editing over the next 20+ years. Programming is becoming more available to non-programmers and that's something to keep in mind if not for tomorrow then for the day after tomorrow (possibility of catastrophic climate change notwithstanding). I also want to add that if I were using vim mainly for writing text, there's one plugin I would find particularly enticing: AutoCompletePopup (you can search for it on google or vim.org). It completes the words for you automatically as you type, and shows you a menu where you can use ctrl-n/p shorcuts to select the match. Some may find it annoying but once I got used to it I feel like it does 30% of the work for me and it doesn't require remembering any vim commands, so I think it's a really useful and sexy plugin for new users especially. -Rainyday -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08 Apr 2011, Eric Weir wrote: [snip] My preference, in my current state of ignorance, anyway, would be to never insert hard line breaks. I do have to share most of my writing with people who don't know anything but Word. So when ready for sharing I would import into another application for formatting. Apple's TextEdit is perfectly adequate most of the time. When I have to import a Vim file into OOWriter (Libreoffice as it now is) I use this command, kindly supplied by Tim Chase in an earlier thread (thanks, Tim): :g/\%^\|\n\@=\s*\n/,/\n\n\|\%$/j This converts each paragraph into a continuous line. It also removes the spaces between the paragraphs. You want that if you are going to use indented paragraphs in OOWriter, but if you want block paragraphs (spaces between paragraphs, no indents) you need to run a further command to reinsert the spaces: :%s/$/\r NB. The first line usually gives an error message : E16 invalid range, but I find I can ignore this without any ill-effects. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
My preference, in my current state of ignorance, anyway, would be to never insert hard line breaks. I do have to share most of my writing with people who don't know anything but Word. So when ready for sharing I would import into another application for formatting. Apple's TextEdit is perfectly adequate most of the time. HTML actually is a great format for exchange documents. See here for some tools that could prove useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language Regards, Tom -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 09:43:16PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: Well, I found time to work through the vim tutor exercise. Pretty basic. Not sure I remember what I learned -- I liked that it said don't try to memorize, to learn by doing -- and in a fog about some things I'm clear about, e.g., how to open a file, how to find out where a file is being saved, how to save a file to a specific folder, etc., and many, many more I'm not. It will come. Dunno if it suits your learning style, but many years ago I started keeping (very brief) notes of the most immediately useful stuff, using vim. The act of condensing a concept, and writing it down, together with the relevant commands, help with memory. Simply capitalising keywords in the file allows rapid access to the desired information, in vim, when memory fails. (Might be useful if you're one who learns a good deal more than is needed to get by up till lunchtime today.) Being customised, the personal help is often a quicker memory backup than the generalised vim help. (OK, only a small part of my accumulated 15k lines relate to vim, but it's all unix stuff, so I can find hard-won vim, awk, bash, and debugging experience in one place. It only has what I have a use for, and it only fills my memory holes, but nothing else does that better.) While I did learn vim while earning a living as a programmer, I use it for everything, including typing this post. To have mutt use vim, just add the line: set editor=vim to ~/.muttrc. (Using vim, naturally.) And when emails (or even a single word in a document) need to be in e.g. Danish or German, digraphs are easily learnt by one's fingers. ( :help :digraphs ) ( :dig ) I have vim set up so that ^D invokes Danish spell checking, and ^E does English, but that's just what suits this vimmer. (I only turn it on at completion of the document.) So yes, vim is well suited to (even multilingual) non-program text editing. Personally, I'd rather learn one interface, learn it well, and use it everywhere. (One shell, one editor, one text processing language, one OS, and one distro thereof. (Oh, alright, I don't use the vi-style line editing interface for the bash commandline. Yet. ;) At 57, I've had to enable two-coloured cursor, to distinguish insert mode. That wasn't necessary in the past. I've also made up/down arrows exit insert mode (to save a keystroke most times), while staying in it for left right. Erik -- I have long felt that most computers today do not use electricity. They instead seem to be powered by the pumping motion of the mouse! - William Shotts, Jr. on http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.ph -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 10:39 PM, Ben Fritz wrote: On Apr 8, 8:43 pm, Eric Weir eew...@bellsouth.net wrote: Haven't the faintest idea how to use the manual, i.e., how to open the files listed in the table of contents. I think I need to get one of the books. http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Learn_to_use_help Thanks, Ben. This should help. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 9, 2011, at 2:53 AM, Tony Mechelynck wrote: There is also, as I said before, help on using help, obtained by typing :help helphelp.txt Thanks for the reminder, Tony. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 9, 2011, at 4:20 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote: When I have to import a Vim file into OOWriter (Libreoffice as it now is) I use this command, kindly supplied by Tim Chase in an earlier thread (thanks, Tim): :g/\%^\|\n\@=\s*\n/,/\n\n\|\%$/j This converts each paragraph into a continuous line. It also removes the spaces between the paragraphs. You want that if you are going to use indented paragraphs in OOWriter, but if you want block paragraphs (spaces between paragraphs, no indents) you need to run a further command to reinsert the spaces: :%s/$/\r Thanks, Tony. I've flagged this for future reference. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 9, 2011, at 5:42 AM, lith wrote: HTML actually is a great format for exchange documents. See here for some tools that could prove useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language Thanks, Tom. I'll keep it in mind. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 9, 2011, at 6:06 AM, Erik Christiansen wrote: Dunno if it suits your learning style, but many years ago I started keeping (very brief) notes of the most immediately useful stuff, using vim. The act of condensing a concept, and writing it down, together with the relevant commands, help with memory. Simply capitalising keywords in the file allows rapid access to the desired information, in vim, when memory fails. (Might be useful if you're one who learns a good deal more than is needed to get by up till lunchtime today.) It suits my learning style perfectly, Erik. Also goes well with a suggestion made by an earlier respondent: Create your own cheat sheet. Don't use the ready-made ones that are widely available. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08 Apr 2011, Magnus Woldrich wrote: On 2011-04-07 16:15, Eric Weir wrote: So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? Though they sure are programmers, I'd like to point out that Tom Christiansen used Vim when writing the Perl Cookbook [0] (his co-author Nathan Torkington used emacs). I'm not a programmer, except for the occasional very simple shell script, but I use vim for all my writing. (I write books, both hard copy and ebooks.) I dislike word processors. (I've been forced to use OpenOffice for one particular purpose recently and hate it.) I think that the process of generating prose should be separate from producing print-ready copy. So I do all my composing in Vim, which allows me to change things easily as much as I like. If I want it to look nice I then import it into LyX, which gives me publishable files. For short things like letters, I have made latex templates which I read into vim. Yes, Vim is more complex than simpler editors like nano, but the extra facilities that Vim provides make it the better choice. I'm no Vim guru, but I've built up my knowledge from the help files. I pick up useful tips from time to time on this list, and when I've had specific problems I couldn't solve, people here have been very kind with supplying solutions. I've gradually constructed my own .vimrc and .gvimrc files. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
RE: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 2011-04-07 16:15, Eric Weir wrote: So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? I am not a programmer. I use Vim to create and edit text and generate publication ready pdfs, using latex (in particular the vim-latex suite). I have used Vim and latex to produce scientific articles, book chapters, applications to government granting agencies. The latter, in particular, are large documents (25 text pages) with embedded figures and bibliographies. Although the learning curve was steep, I am very pleased with the results and find that Vim is ideally suited for text editing. In fact, I rarely do any text editing any more outside of Vim (and latex). When I am forced to use a word-processing program, I find myself trying to navigate using Vim's key commands. So, the point is that, with perseverance, effort and practice, it becomes second nature after a while. The tutorial included is a good start, and there are also many good guides and how-to's on line that will help build familiarity with Vim. There are also some excellent tutorials on latex as well as books available. Pedro L Vera -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Don't be intimidated. Vim can be used like a simple DOS-era editor without unusual difficulty, and you can learn the more advanced facilities at your own pace. Most of the adjustment is just getting comfortable with a new set of keys. Despite first appearances, this should not be fundamentally difficult, especially for someone who has used CPM, DOS, Linux and Mac and made all the corresponding adjustments; those adjustments always require some ability to self- teach and some patience with things being different, which is all you need to become productive in Vim for any kind of editing. My background is similar to yours and for me, adjusting to Vim was really a matter of patience more than difficulty. I feel that many ordinary, nontechnical computer users of today would not have the patience to learn WordStar. Programming only comes in if you start writing your own scripts, and you would know if that was something you needed to do. Otherwise, don't worry about it. Everyone mentions the tutorial because working through it a couple of times is a good way to get through those first few days, to the point where there is much less temptation to give up. (I'm sorry I don't have the details on how to run it in macvim, but actually it is just a text file which you copy and work on using vim - all 'vimtutor' does is copy the file and open the copy in vim for you to edit). My path included changing some key mappings in vimrc to get more comfortable, but try the tutorial first (in the end I have undone most of my key remappings to be more efficient). Don't be afraid of people calling you names if you use the arrow keys or something - it's up to you how much hand motion you can endure ;) You can change almost everything later. After that, the speed of your learning really depends on how much of your work you can push to Vim. Vim is great for anyone who wants to work on text exclusively from the keyboard, and well worth spending a few less-productive days to get used to. If you learn it, you get an editor which will follow you to pretty much every platform, which is fast and lightweight, which can be customized to almost arbitrary needs, and which already has a lot of good user-developed plugins. This combination is not so common. You don't need to dive down to its full depth just to use it, but it's really nice to have that depth there when you want it. The down side you have noticed is that it isn't very discoverable, since learning it does require reading documentation (e.g. :help). If you prefer pretty and simple and a highly discoverable, mouse-centered interface with default keys that are the same as most other editors, right out of the box, then there are a lot of editors which are better for that. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 10:20 PM, Tim Chase wrote: On 04/07/2011 08:05 PM, Tim Gray wrote: I feel like to get the most out of it you need to a) put the time in to learn it and b) put the time in *configuring* to make it work for you. While I certainly agree with (a), I'm at the other end of the spectrum on (b). [1] http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html Thanks, Tim. The note on this link recommends O'Reilly's book on Vi and when you go to the O'Reilly pages linked in it their are rave comments about the book. Is this the book for a totally new *Vim* user of my background with the use I've indicated? Doesn't O'Reilly have a book directly on Vim? Regards, -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 9:14 AM, Sasha wrote: Don't be intimidated. Vim can be used like a simple DOS-era editor without unusual difficulty, and you can learn the more advanced facilities at your own pace. Most of the adjustment is just getting comfortable with a new set of keys. Despite first appearances, this should not be fundamentally difficult, especially for someone who has used CPM, DOS, Linux and Mac and made all the corresponding adjustments; those adjustments always require some ability to self- teach and some patience with things being different, which is all you need to become productive in Vim for any kind of editing. Thanks, Sasha. Very helpful -- and encouraging. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 11:20 PM, Scott Bicknell wrote: On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 04:15:37PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? Not at all. I don't program other than writing occasional shell scripts. Most of my use of Vim is for writing prose. Using anything else for composition and editing is unthinkable. Whenever I try to use a word processor or other editor for writing, the document ends up with unwanted auto-formatting and tell-tail Vim commands in the text. Thanks, Scott. Glad to hear that there are in fact others using Vim as I'm contemplating using it. Go through the vimtutor included with the program, but also read the user manual (:h usr_toc). It is based on the book Vi IMproved--Vim, which is an in-depth tutorial. The user manual is truly excellent. Will do. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:58 AM, Magnus Woldrich wrote: Indeed, the help in vim is fantastic. Other than that, I'd recommend just reading this list; look up stuff people talk about, don't be afraid to ask. Thanks, Magnus. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:43 AM, lith wrote: There is also the question how you get text edited with vim into some format you can submit. vim isn't particularly good at editing text with no hard line breaks (tw=0), i.e. soft wrap. In order to get some text formatting into e.g. Word, most likely requires the use of some command line tool that converts the text to something Word can read. I'm not sure such tools are easy to use for somebody who has never written a single line of code. Thanks, Tom. I've wondered about that. Lack of word wrap is a concern. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08 Apr 2011, Eric Weir wrote: In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old. Don't if I'll get where you are before my life ends. Just getting comfortable with Vim as an editor is challenge enough for now. I don't think age is a barrier to learning Vim. I'm 78 next month and Vim doesn't worry me (admittedly, I started using it quite a few years ago). I find it useful to browse through the documentation when I've nothing better to do; I quite often come across useful short cuts and better methods of doing things. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 4:30 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote: I dislike word processors. (I've been forced to use OpenOffice for one particular purpose recently and hate it.) I think that the process of generating prose should be separate from producing print-ready copy. So I do all my composing in Vim, which allows me to change things easily as much as I like. If I want it to look nice I then import it into LyX, which gives me publishable files. For short things like letters, I have made latex templates which I read into vim. Thanks, Anthony. I did all my writing from the early '80s till just a couple years ago on MaxThink, the legendary outlining program, which had absolutely no formatting capabilities. I totally buy the developer's [Neil Larson] philosophy for that application. The emphasis was on supporting thinking, and keeping things that distract you from thinking out of the way. MaxThink was/is a DOS application. Totally command-driven. An attempt at a version with a GUI was a complete flop. Even today, having finally reluctantly moved on from MaxThink, I keep formatting to a bare minimum -- bolding titles and headings, italicizing subheadings, occasionally footnoting -- and apply it only when sharing long documents with others. Yeah, I think I hate OpenOffice Writer as much as Word. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 8:13 pm, David Lam david.k.l...@gmail.com wrote: hmm, well I use Vim for programming mainly, but personally I'd use it for anything involving text two more features you might find useful for plain ol' writing: - spell checking :h spell (basically, :set spell, then z= to correct a word) - insert mode word completion :h i_ctrl-p (type the start of a word, then ctrl+p to complete it)- Hide quoted text - Some other things to be aware of: 1. Text objects. Things like cap (change a paragraph) and dis (delete a sentence) would be amazing for writing prose. There are also text objects for text inside quotes, text inside parentheses, and more. See :help text-objects within Vim. These text objects work with any of the Vim operators like 'd' delete, 'y' yank/copy, 'c' change, and also in visual mode. 2. The Vim Tips wiki. While mostly geared toward programmers, there's also a lot of stuff to learn. See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Getting_started for our new user tips. 3. If you're just writing prose, the txtfmt plugin may be useful. It gives you the ability to apply styles like underline, background/ foreground color, italics, and bold to arbitrary text. You can get it from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2208. It will be especially useful if you combine it with the :TOhtml command that comes with Vim. See :help :TOhtml. Using this command you can colorize you text and then export it to HTML so you can view/print it in a web browser. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 8:22 AM, Vera, Pedro L. wrote: I am not a programmer. I use Vim to create and edit text and generate publication ready pdfs, using latex (in particular the vim-latex suite). I have used Vim and latex to produce scientific articles, book chapters, applications to government granting agencies. The latter, in particular, are large documents (25 text pages) with embedded figures and bibliographies. Although the learning curve was steep, I am very pleased with the results and find that Vim is ideally suited for text editing. In fact, I rarely do any text editing any more outside of Vim (and latex). When I am forced to use a word-processing program, I find myself trying to navigate using Vim's key commands. So, the point is that, with perseverance, effort and practice, it becomes second nature after a while. The tutorial included is a good start, and there are also many good guides and how-to's on line that will help build familiarity with Vim. There are also some excellent tutorials on latex as well as books available. Thanks, Pedro. I'm willing to put in the effort, once I get over the hump of initial bafflement, which I'm hoping the tutor file will enable me to do. A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?] -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:19 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote: I don't think age is a barrier to learning Vim. I'm 78 next month and Vim doesn't worry me (admittedly, I started using it quite a few years ago). I find it useful to browse through the documentation when I've nothing better to do; I quite often come across useful short cuts and better methods of doing things. Well, guess I'm not so old after all. But still old. There comes a point where there's no denying it. [How about 69?] But then old relative. There are ways in which I'm a lot younger than a lot of people a lot younger than I am. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 08, 2011 at 11:25 AM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?] Vim does soft wrap, but it only wraps at the edge of the screen. It can also be set to soft wrap at word breaks instead of in the middle of words. Furthermore, you can have vim insert hard line breaks automatically for you when you write/edit a paragraph. You can find out more if you search for 'fo-table'. If you are writing in really plain text, this might be the way to go. Unfortunately, even with these options, this is an area that vim seems to fall down a little bit on. Other text editors I've used have the capability to soft wrap at user defined columns, while also matching the indent of the first line with the soft wrapped lines. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:22 AM, Ben Fritz wrote: 1. Text objects. Things like cap (change a paragraph) and dis (delete a sentence) would be amazing for writing prose. There are also text objects for text inside quotes, text inside parentheses, and more. See :help text-objects within Vim. These text objects work with any of the Vim operators like 'd' delete, 'y' yank/copy, 'c' change, and also in visual mode. 2. The Vim Tips wiki. While mostly geared toward programmers, there's also a lot of stuff to learn. See http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Getting_started for our new user tips. 3. If you're just writing prose, the txtfmt plugin may be useful. It gives you the ability to apply styles like underline, background/ foreground color, italics, and bold to arbitrary text. You can get it from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2208. It will be especially useful if you combine it with the :TOhtml command that comes with Vim. See :help :TOhtml. Using this command you can colorize you text and then export it to HTML so you can view/print it in a web browser. Thanks, Ben -- on all counts. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
There is also the question how you get text edited with vim into some format you can submit. vim isn't particularly good at editing text with no hard line breaks (tw=0), i.e. soft wrap. In order to get some text formatting into e.g. Word, most likely requires the use of some command line tool that converts the text to something Word can read. I'm not sure such tools are easy to use for somebody who has never written a single line of code. Thanks, Tom. I've wondered about that. Lack of word wrap is a concern. You can compose plain text in Vim so that each paragraph is a single `physical' line (Vim will still form as many screen lines as needed to fit the text in). When you are finished, Word (or whatever so called word processor) will take care of formatting (word-wrapping, hyphenation etc.) automatically, as it will see each line-paragraph as a true paragraph. Another option is to port your Vim-prepared text to LyX (http://lyx.org) instead of to a more traditional word processor. LyX, like Vim, has an excellent documentation, and is an excellent document preparation system. In addition, you will not need to adhere to the one-paragraph- one-line rule while in Vim. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Fri, 8 Apr 2011, Tim Gray wrote: On Apr 08, 2011 at 11:25 AM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?] Vim does soft wrap, but it only wraps at the edge of the screen. It can also be set to soft wrap at word breaks instead of in the middle of words. Furthermore, you can have vim insert hard line breaks automatically for you when you write/edit a paragraph. You can find out more if you search for 'fo-table'. If you are writing in really plain text, this might be the way to go. Unfortunately, even with these options, this is an area that vim seems to fall down a little bit on. Other text editors I've used have the capability to soft wrap at user defined columns, while also matching the indent of the first line with the soft wrapped lines. Maybe patch #9 on the Vim Patches page (Correctly indent wrapped lines) would do what you're looking for? http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/web/vim-patches No idea of its current status. -- Best, Ben -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
RE: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Eric Weir [eew...@bellsouth.net] wrote: A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?] It's not an issue. Latex will typeset your document according to its (Latex's) own format and syntax structures. In case you want to pursue this further, here's a site I found extremely helpful at the beginning of my latex adventure, and I still consult it often for reminders/tips/ etc. http://www.andy-roberts.net/misc/latex/ I would suggest doing the small sample document listed in the absolute begginer's section listed in the website and use vim to create the document. The instructions will walk you through generating your document in pdf format. By the way, you will have to install Latex in your system. I think you mentioned you are running MacOS, in which case this website will be useful http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started I mainly run linux in all my boxes, but have one Mac where Vim (or MacVim) and latex are running very nicely. Best of luck! Pedro -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:37 AM, Tim Gray wrote: Vim does soft wrap, but it only wraps at the edge of the screen. It can also be set to soft wrap at word breaks instead of in the middle of words. Thanks, Tim. That much would be good enough for starters, especially if the Vim window is kept at a reasonable [for me] size. wo all MaxThink, the outlining application that I relied upon for about 20 years, does. However, when text was imported into word processors margins could be set. Furthermore, you can have vim insert hard line breaks automatically for you when you write/edit a paragraph. You can find out more if you search for 'fo-table'. If you are writing in really plain text, this might be the way to go. My preference, in my current state of ignorance, anyway, would be to never insert hard line breaks. I do have to share most of my writing with people who don't know anything but Word. So when ready for sharing I would import into another application for formatting. Apple's TextEdit is perfectly adequate most of the time. Unfortunately, even with these options, this is an area that vim seems to fall down a little bit on. Other text editors I've used have the capability to soft wrap at user defined columns, while also matching the indent of the first line with the soft wrapped lines. Given Vim's power and versatility shouldn't this be remediable? -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Hi, Well, guess I'm not so old after all. But still old. Usually people are worried about vi(m) being old. :-) vi is 35 years old. (According to wikipedia it was first written 1976). And vim turned 20 this year it seems. Regards, Tom -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08 Apr 2011, Eric Weir wrote: On Apr 8, 2011, at 4:30 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote: I dislike word processors. (I've been forced to use OpenOffice for one particular purpose recently and hate it.) I think that the process of generating prose should be separate from producing print-ready copy. So I do all my composing in Vim, which allows me to change things easily as much as I like. If I want it to look nice I then import it into LyX, which gives me publishable files. For short things like letters, I have made latex templates which I read into vim. Thanks, Anthony. I did all my writing from the early '80s till just a couple years ago on MaxThink, the legendary outlining program, which had absolutely no formatting capabilities. I totally buy the developer's [Neil Larson] philosophy for that application. The emphasis was on supporting thinking, and keeping things that distract you from thinking out of the way. MaxThink was/is a DOS application. Totally command-driven. An attempt at a version with a GUI was a complete flop. Even today, having finally reluctantly moved on from MaxThink, I keep formatting to a bare minimum -- bolding titles and headings, italicizing subheadings, occasionally footnoting -- and apply it only when sharing long documents with others. Yeah, I think I hate OpenOffice Writer as much as Word. I'd definitely suggest having a look at LyX, if you haven't done so already. It's described as a document processor, not a word processor. You can do all this stuff in Latex, and I did in the past, but LyX makes it easier and quicker. From the blurb: LyX is for people who want their writing to look great, right out of the box. No more endless tinkering with formatting details, “finger painting” font attributes or futzing around with page boundaries. You just write. On screen, LyX looks like any word processor; its printed output — or richly cross-referenced PDF, just as readily produced — looks like nothing else. I think LyX is brilliant, but I still like to write first in Vim and import it into Lyx when it's more or less as I want it. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/08/2011 10:22 AM, Ben Fritz wrote: 1. Text objects. Things like cap (change a paragraph) and dis (delete a sentence) would be amazing for writing prose. As a matter of fact, almost *all* my usage of the is and as text objects are used when editing prose. They don't serve much purpose when I'm writing code :) But text objects are a seriously powerful advantage Vim offers -- I regularly tire in other editors of move around to the beginning of the text-object, hold down shift while I move around to the end of the text-object when in Vim it would just be a quick text-object manipulation. -tim -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:43 AM, Vera, Pedro L. wrote: Eric Weir [eew...@bellsouth.net] wrote: A question regarding a concern raised by another respondent: How do you deal with the absence of word wrap. [Or is that even an issue with latex?] It's not an issue. Latex will typeset your document according to its (Latex's) own format and syntax structures. In case you want to pursue this further, here's a site I found extremely helpful at the beginning of my latex adventure, and I still consult it often for reminders/tips/ etc. http://www.andy-roberts.net/misc/latex/ I would suggest doing the small sample document listed in the absolute begginer's section listed in the website and use vim to create the document. The instructions will walk you through generating your document in pdf format. By the way, you will have to install Latex in your system. I think you mentioned you are running MacOS, in which case this website will be useful http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started Thanks again, Pedro. I've bookmarked the links. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:54 AM, lith wrote: Usually people are worried about vi(m) being old. :-) Maybe Vim is old like me -- in some ways, in some [important] ways not. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 08, 2011 at 12:17 PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: That's the way I'd want to go -- and as I've said, the way I worked between MaxThink and word processors for a long time. Well if that's the way you want to go, you could also do straight Latex from Vim. That works very well for many types of documents. It's what I do. There's a very nice Latex package for Mac as well. http://www.tug.org/mactex/ -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:39 AM, Boyko Bantchev wrote: You can compose plain text in Vim so that each paragraph is a single `physical' line (Vim will still form as many screen lines as needed to fit the text in). When you are finished, Word (or whatever so called word processor) will take care of formatting (word-wrapping, hyphenation etc.) automatically, as it will see each line-paragraph as a true paragraph. Thanks, Boyko. That's all I would need! It's the way I worked between MaxThink and various word processors for over 20 years. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/08/2011 09:51 AM, Eric Weir wrote: On Apr 7, 2011, at 10:20 PM, Tim Chase wrote: http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html Thanks, Tim. The note on this link recommends O'Reilly's book on Vi and when you go to the O'Reilly pages linked in it their are rave comments about the book. A slightly biased link, as the Ask Tim column is asking Tim O'Reilly, for whom O'Reilly is named. :) Is this the book for a totally new *Vim* user of my background with the use I've indicated? Doesn't O'Reilly have a book directly on Vim? O'Reilly has both Learning Vi and Vim and Vi and Vim Editors Pocket Reference. Additionally, New Riders put out Steve Oualline's Vi IMproved though it's dated 2001 which doesn't touch newer advances in Vim. While I've skimmed all 3 titles, I'd say it depends on how you learn. I threw myself into learning Vim, restricting myself to Vim for all my text-editing. I achieved functional parity to my old editors' level of comfort (QEdit and the Turbo Pascal IDE for DOS, various IDE's in Win32, and Nano/Pico on *nix) within 2-3 weeks. And after a month, the productivity gains from using Vim blew away the other editors so it's hard to go back. The biggest skill to have when learning Vim is to reflect on what your doing to the point where you see yourself repeating certain actions and then asking (yourself, the help, the mailing list, a book, a Vim wiki, etc.) how you can improve. I find that just asking questions here on the list (and lurking to see other folks asking/answering questions) advanced me farther than any book would have. And lastly, I'll plug vimgolf.com if you want to stretch yourself. :) -tim -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Hi All On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 05:02 PM, Anthony Campbell a...@acampbell.org.uk wrote: On 08 Apr 2011, Eric Weir wrote: On Apr 8, 2011, at 4:30 AM, Anthony Campbell wrote: I dislike word processors. (I've been forced to use OpenOffice for one particular purpose recently and hate it.) I think that the process of generating prose should be separate from producing print-ready copy. So I do all my composing in Vim, which allows me to change things easily as much as I like. If I want it to look nice I then import it into LyX, which gives me publishable files. For short things like letters, I have made latex templates which I read into vim. Thanks, Anthony. I did all my writing from the early '80s till just a couple years ago on MaxThink, the legendary outlining program, which had absolutely no formatting capabilities. I totally buy the developer's [Neil Larson] philosophy for that application. The emphasis was on supporting thinking, and keeping things that distract you from thinking out of the way. MaxThink was/is a DOS application. Totally command-driven. An attempt at a version with a GUI was a complete flop. Even today, having finally reluctantly moved on from MaxThink, I keep formatting to a bare minimum -- bolding titles and headings, italicizing subheadings, occasionally footnoting -- and apply it only when sharing long documents with others. Yeah, I think I hate OpenOffice Writer as much as Word. I'd definitely suggest having a look at LyX, if you haven't done so already. It's described as a document processor, not a word processor. You can do all this stuff in Latex, and I did in the past, but LyX makes it easier and quicker. From the blurb: LyX is for people who want their writing to look great, right out of the box. No more endless tinkering with formatting details, “finger painting” font attributes or futzing around with page boundaries. You just write. On screen, LyX looks like any word processor; its printed output — or richly cross-referenced PDF, just as readily produced — looks like nothing else. I think LyX is brilliant, but I still like to write first in Vim and import it into Lyx when it's more or less as I want it. Anthony I am not a programmer but do most of my written work with Vim, aided and abetted by other software to produce good looking documents, even if they are only reports or letters. For reports and longer texts, my use is similar to Anthony's with the variation that I use VimOutliner for organising my text first, then import it into Lyx with the otl2lyx.awk script (part of the VimOutliner package) to preserve the structure of my outline. After that, when I need to further edit the text in the Lyx document, I often do so by opening the file with Vim and edit body text only (don't want to corrupt the Lyx document) and making certain that I don't hit the CR while doing so. Then I save the file and in Lyx I Reload it and compile the document as needed. For letters, I use VimLatex. I also use Vim for emails with vmail. It is easier for me than Mutt and more 'Vimmy'. Cheers G -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08/04/11 17:08, Eric Weir wrote: On Apr 8, 2011, at 12:52 AM, Magnus Woldrich wrote: Here's my setup: IRC: irssi with vi-mode [0] and ii [1] with vim [2] PDF: apvlv [3] Shell: zsh with set -o vi Music: mpd [4] with Pimpd [5] Video: mplayer Readline: set editing-mode vi set keymap vi-insert Browser: Firefox with pentadactyl [6] Writing Mail: mutt, with editor set to vim In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old. Don't if I'll get where you are before my life ends. Just getting comfortable with Vim as an editor is challenge enough for now. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net Don't let age worry you. I've turned 60 in January, an age one of my grandparents never reached, and yet one of my goals in life is to die young -- as late as possible. To me, one of the exciting things about Vim is that although you can get rather comfortable with it in a short time -- after completing the vimtutor sequence, say -- there are always new things to learn about it, and even if someday I get to know all the contents of the present help on the tips of my fingers, and what all that means and how to apply it, by that time some additional exciting new features will have been added, so it never becomes something old and dull. For instance everything in version7.txt was added since I first became seriously interested in Vim, and what a thrill it was when each one of these new features appeared! Best regards, Tony. -- hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict: 48. You have a tatoo that says This body best viewed with Netscape 3.1 or higher. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08/04/11 18:01, Eric Weir wrote: On Apr 8, 2011, at 11:43 AM, Benjamin R. Haskell wrote: Unfortunately, even with these options, this is an area that vim seems to fall down a little bit on. Other text editors I've used have the capability to soft wrap at user defined columns, while also matching the indent of the first line with the soft wrapped lines. Maybe patch #9 on the Vim Patches page (Correctly indent wrapped lines) would do what you're looking for? http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/web/vim-patches No idea of its current status. Thanks, Benjamin. That's available only if you compile Vim yourself. Might be something to consider after I've gotten minimally comfortable with Vim. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net Compiling Vim is not really hard, and I've written a couple of how-to pages about it; but by all means get comfortable with Vim as an editor first, and then later on (especially if you aren't on Windows, because on Windows there are excellent distributions published pre-compiled and regularly updated by the Cream project) you'll know better if it's worth your while to grab the latest of the greatest (both bug fixes and new enhancements) by compiling Vim yourself before (sometimes long before) your software wholesaler comes around to it. Best regards, Tony. -- Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath. -- Dave Barry, Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 1:39 PM, Tim Chase wrote: The biggest skill to have when learning Vim is to reflect on what your doing to the point where you see yourself repeating certain actions and then asking (yourself, the help, the mailing list, a book, a Vim wiki, etc.) how you can improve And lastly, I'll plug vimgolf.com if you want to stretch yourself. :) A *very* different approach to editing. It will be a stretch initially, but I've had experience related to it -- though with less powerful apps -- and it's appealing. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Tony Mechelynck wrote: Compiling Vim is not really hard, and I've written a couple of how-to pages about it; but by all means get comfortable with Vim as an editor first, and then later on (especially if you aren't on Windows, because on Windows there are excellent distributions published pre-compiled and regularly updated by the Cream project) you'll know better if it's worth your while to grab the latest of the greatest (both bug fixes and new enhancements) by compiling Vim yourself before (sometimes long before) your software wholesaler comes around to it. Thanks, Tony. Yes, first things first. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 5:04 PM, Grahame Blackwood wrote: I am not a programmer but do most of my written work with Vim, aided and abetted by other software to produce good looking documents, even if they are only reports or letters. For reports and longer texts, my use is similar to Anthony's with the variation that I use VimOutliner for organising my text first, then import it into Lyx with the otl2lyx.awk script (part of the VimOutliner package) to preserve the structure of my outline. After that, when I need to further edit the text in the Lyx document, I often do so by opening the file with Vim and edit body text only (don't want to corrupt the Lyx document) and making certain that I don't hit the CR while doing so. Then I save the file and in Lyx I Reload it and compile the document as needed. Thanks for sharing your experience, Grahame. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 9, 3:08 am, Eric Weir eew...@bellsouth.net wrote: In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old. IMO, and IME, it's the opposite: being young is a handicap for learning to use a decent text editor. Young people get spoon-fed with brain-dead ways of doing things very early and often are very reluctant to unlearn those ways, especially generation Y. Hats off to those that do. Regards, John -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Well, I found time to work through the vim tutor exercise. Pretty basic. Not sure I remember what I learned -- I liked that it said don't try to memorize, to learn by doing -- and in a fog about some things I'm clear about, e.g., how to open a file, how to find out where a file is being saved, how to save a file to a specific folder, etc., and many, many more I'm not. It will come. Haven't the faintest idea how to use the manual, i.e., how to open the files listed in the table of contents. I think I need to get one of the books. Something I learned on one of the websites: Vim comes installed on Macs. Enough for today. Thanks for all the encouragement and guidance. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 2011, at 8:50 PM, John Little wrote: On Apr 9, 3:08 am, Eric Weir eew...@bellsouth.net wrote: In addition to my other handicap -- not being a programmer -- I'm old. IMO, and IME, it's the opposite: being young is a handicap for learning to use a decent text editor. Young people get spoon-fed with brain-dead ways of doing things very early and often are very reluctant to unlearn those ways, especially generation Y. Hats off to those that do. I have no experience of generation Y, that I know of anyway. From the beginning, I've been pretty stubborn about getting computers and applications to work in ways that make sense for me. Maybe I'm younger than them? -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/08/2011 08:43 PM, Eric Weir wrote: Well, I found time to work through the vim tutor exercise. Pretty basic. Not sure I remember what I learned -- I liked that it said don't try to memorize, to learn by doing Nothing like practice to burn it in :) As mentioned in a previous email, I forced myself to use nothing but Vim for a month and by the end of it, there was no going back. The things I used regularly became natural; the things I didn't use regularly got filed away in the vim can do that if I ever need it part of my brain without memorizing the specifics. Haven't the faintest idea how to use the manual, i.e., how to open the files listed in the table of contents. I think I need to get one of the books. If you just type :help the top of the help-page it pulls up gives you tips on navigating the help. Additionally, you can read :help :helpgrep :help quickfix for searching through the help. Knowing regular-expressions helps a LOT. -tim (apologies if this is a dupe...weird SMTP/IMAP error) -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 8, 8:43 pm, Eric Weir eew...@bellsouth.net wrote: Haven't the faintest idea how to use the manual, i.e., how to open the files listed in the table of contents. I think I need to get one of the books. http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Learn_to_use_help -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Eric Weir schrob am 07.04.2011 22:15: So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? I use Vim (also) as a blog draft editor, so, mainly, yes. However, the full power of its command mode may be a bit too complicated just for writing plain text... -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
The way I learned vi: 1. Start a cheatsheet. Don't download one. Make your own. Making it will help you learn. I use Tomboy Notes, but at the beginning, paper is better. 2. Every time you find you don't know how to do something, like joining lines, look it up ( use :help join or google vim join ), and then add it to your list. Once you really know the basic commands, remove it from your sheet. 3. Start vim and then enter :help tutor. The ':' puts you in command mode so you can run the help command. If it does not work, hit ESC and try again. 4. Learn what the modes mean (input, command, visual). Without understanding them, everything else will be confusing. Commands do not work if you aren't in the right mode first. 5. Use it. Your fingers will get the habit. 6. The Vim book is helpful. 7. Once you get going, this mail list is very helpful. After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit 'i' out of habit in your email appand not like seeing an i. I actually have used vim for many years, but only the bare basics. I used it to tweak a file here or there, but never to write anything. Then KDE came out with Kdevelop 4. Uggg! After using KDevelop since 2.0, I gave up on it. I looked for other IDEs and liked none.So I started learning vim.I love it and no longer miss KDevelop. Especially since I am finding myself writing code on a machine across the country through ssh. My favorite thing about it is to be able open any number of windows in one pane ( see :sp and :vsp and CTRL-W to navigate between windows). vim turns my keyboard into a 200+ key text editing gamepad. Good luck, -d -- David Ohlemacher Senior Software Engineer Scientific Solutions Inc. 99 Perimeter Rd Nashua New Hampshire 03063 603-880-3784 . o . . . o o o o -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 07/04/11 22:15, Eric Weir wrote: I've downloaded and installed a copy of MacVim. I've peeked at a few of the help topics. [I'd like to run the tutorial, but haven't figured out how to do that, yet.] I'm not a programmer. Far from it. I'm intrigued for a least a couple reasons, the main one being the fact that Vim is command-driven, that everything's done from the keyboard. [My very first experience with an editor was with Wordstar on CPM, and I've missed doing everything from the keyboard ever since.] The outliner plugins appeal to me as well. [I was a long-time devote of MaxThink, running it in a DOS Window after moving to Windows from DOS, and in DOSBox under Linux and now on a Mac.] And so does the possibility of using it as a file manager as well as editor. Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? Thanks, -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net Oh, it is not at all ridiculous to think of, the idea is just to take it slowly, bit by bit, and not think that next week you will already know everything about Vim from A to Zed, Alpha to Omega and Aleph to Tav. How to use the vimtutor is explained in the first few lines of vimtutor.bat (for Windows) or of vimtutor (for Unix - Linux - Mac OS X - etc.) It is slightly different for Windows and for other OSes. Run that tutor as soon as you can, it will teach you the basics. You're now subscribed to the vim_use, that's another good point. Read what is said here, and while at first some posts may pass you completely over the head, others will teach you useful tips and tricks about how to get the most out of Vim. And finally, don't hesitate to use the help. When, in one of the posts in this mailing list, you come across a command, an option, etc., which is obscure to you, go find its help. The Vim help is infinitely better than what most other programs try to pass off as help and often is hardly more than an advertising pamphlet by comparison: with Vim, *everything* is covered in the help. So much so that the newbie sometimes faces a sort of needle-and-haystack problem; however, even against that problem there is help -- when I started using Vim it was in several places, but now most of the help about help has been brought together in one place, namely the helpfile helphelp.txt. So by typing :help helphelp.txt in a running Vim, you will be brought to help about using help, which IMO is the most important thing to master in order to become a proficient Vim user. Best regards, Tony. -- What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 07, 2011 at 04:15 PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? I'm not a hardcore programmer, but I do use vim and other tools for technical stuff. If you really are not doing anything programming or technical related, and just looking for a plain text editor, I might recommend looking at some other options. Not that you couldn't get along with vim, but there are other tools out there that might be a little easier to get at first. And if you don't need all of the power of vim, why not use something a bit easier to learn? With that thought, I'd recommend looking at BBEdit (or it's free 'light' version, Textwrangler) or Textmate. Though these programs don't have the modal nature of vim, you can do most if not all of your work in them all through the keyboard: selecting text, find and replace, general text modification, etc. Of course try out MacVim too along side the other two. I'm a long time user of BBEdit and have been very happy with it. The support is great and it has a great manual. It doesn't have quite all the power, features, or customizability of vim, but it is pretty easy to dive in and use it as a simple plain text editor with no real learning curve. And if you want more, there is plenty there. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 3:38 PM, tux. der_tux...@arcor.de wrote: Eric Weir schrob am 07.04.2011 22:15: So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? I use Vim (also) as a blog draft editor, so, mainly, yes. However, the full power of its command mode may be a bit too complicated just for writing plain text... What you can remember is aside from a few things, you can use macvim with the mouse as you get used to it. I actually did my learning curve in about 6-8 hours and got productive (I am a programmer), and for about a week kept looking things up and adding to my kbd commands if you do this and take things one at a time I actually think you can have fun learning it. Just dont be too hard on yourself, allow mouse use for awhile :) For me it came down to getting a few simple things straight like using nerdtree as file browser, learning how to grep / vimgrep to search, and how to find and replace. I would think if you are just using to edit text you could get up to speed pretty fast. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Hi Eric, Firstly, I do use vim for programming (mainly php and sql), but, I also use it as a text editor for typing and writing out stuff. For example, I use it to keep minutes of meetings I attend while I am listeningthe commands allow me to skip around the page so much faster than if I was using word or another non-vim text editor. Also, I am a user of viemu, which emulates vim in Word and outlookit is a very good program (I have no financial interest in the product, but am a user) I strongly recommend you have a look at www.viemu.com Basically, the more you use vim, the faster you becomepersonally, I try to use it whenever I can...I even use the vimperator plugin for firefox...I am so used to the key movements that I hate using the mouse now, it seems slow and foreign to me, almost frustrating. Hope this helps Regards Paul On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Eric Weir eew...@bellsouth.net wrote: I've downloaded and installed a copy of MacVim. I've peeked at a few of the help topics. [I'd like to run the tutorial, but haven't figured out how to do that, yet.] I'm not a programmer. Far from it. I'm intrigued for a least a couple reasons, the main one being the fact that Vim is command-driven, that everything's done from the keyboard. [My very first experience with an editor was with Wordstar on CPM, and I've missed doing everything from the keyboard ever since.] The outliner plugins appeal to me as well. [I was a long-time devote of MaxThink, running it in a DOS Window after moving to Windows from DOS, and in DOSBox under Linux and now on a Mac.] And so does the possibility of using it as a file manager as well as editor. Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? Thanks, -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 11:11 pm, Tim Gray tg...@protozoic.com wrote: On Apr 07, 2011 at 04:15 PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? snip I used to be a translator. In the final years of this 'career' I used Gvim as a sort of frontend to Microsoft Word and translation software. I found that combination of autocompletion, autocorrection, marks, sessions, the convenience of keyboard only editing, Vim's speed and reliability, and the ease with which complicated commands can be assigned to keystrokes helped me to become both a faster and a more accurate typist. The added bonus was that sometimes I had to make changes in exported translation memories (plain text files) and my Vim knowledge saved many an hour of line by line corrections. So I'd say: use Vim and learn a little every day. You can change litterally everything in Vim, including its looks and what happens if you type \t. You could probably even make it behave like Wordstar. John -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 3:59 PM, David Ohlemacher dohlemac...@scisol.comwrote: The way I learned vi: 1. Start a cheatsheet. Don't download one. Make your own. Making it will help you learn. I use Tomboy Notes, but at the beginning, paper is better. Agreed... I copied and pasted to an ugly text file but it worked! But using others sheets wholesale didnt. 2. Every time you find you don't know how to do something, like joining lines, look it up ( use :help join or google vim join ), and then add it to your list. Once you really know the basic commands, remove it from your sheet. 3. Start vim and then enter :help tutor. The ':' puts you in command mode so you can run the help command. If it does not work, hit ESC and try again. 4. Learn what the modes mean (input, command, visual). Without understanding them, everything else will be confusing. Commands do not work if you aren't in the right mode first. 5. Use it. Your fingers will get the habit. 6. The Vim book is helpful. 7. Once you get going, this mail list is very helpful. After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit 'i' out of habit in your email appand not like seeing an i. I cracked up the first time I found myself trying to use 'k' to move up a cell in a spreadsheet :) I actually have used vim for many years, but only the bare basics. I used it to tweak a file here or there, but never to write anything. Then KDE came out with Kdevelop 4. Uggg! After using KDevelop since 2.0, I gave up on it. I looked for other IDEs and liked none.So I started learning vim.I love it and no longer miss KDevelop.Especially since I am finding myself writing code on a machine across the country through ssh. My favorite thing about it is to be able open any number of windows in one pane ( see :sp and :vsp and CTRL-W to navigate between windows). Amen! vim turns my keyboard into a 200+ key text editing gamepad. Good luck, -d -- David Ohlemacher Senior Software Engineer Scientific Solutions Inc. 99 Perimeter Rd Nashua New Hampshire 03063 603-880-3784 . o . . . o o o o -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:59 PM, David Ohlemacher wrote: 1. Start a cheatsheet. Don't download one. Make your own. Making it will help you learn. I use Tomboy Notes, but at the beginning, paper is better. After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit 'i' out of habit in your email appand not like seeing an i. Thanks for the suggestion, David. They make sense. I can imagine getting to the place where it irritates me to have to leave the keyboard. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:03 PM, Tony Mechelynck wrote: And finally, don't hesitate to use the help. When, in one of the posts in this mailing list, you come across a command, an option, etc., which is obscure to you, go find its help. The Vim help is infinitely better than what most other programs try to pass off as help and often is hardly more than an advertising pamphlet by comparison: with Vim, *everything* is covered in the help. So much so that the newbie sometimes faces a sort of needle-and-haystack problem; however, even against that problem there is help -- when I started using Vim it was in several places, but now most of the help about help has been brought together in one place, namely the helpfile helphelp.txt. So by typing :help helphelp.txt in a running Vim, you will be brought to help about using help, which IMO is the most important thing to master in order to become a proficient Vim user. Wow! Even help for help. Cool. I'd gotten the sense already that Vim's help was really good. But help for help. Pretty cool. Thanks, -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:11 PM, Tim Gray wrote: With that thought, I'd recommend looking at BBEdit (or it's free 'light' version, Textwrangler) or Textmate. Though these programs don't have the modal nature of vim, you can do most if not all of your work in them all through the keyboard: selecting text, find and replace, general text modification, etc. Of course try out MacVim too along side the other two. Thanks for the suggestion, Tim. I'll keep it in mind. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:19 PM, David Kahn wrote: What you can remember is aside from a few things, you can use macvim with the mouse as you get used to it. I actually did my learning curve in about 6-8 hours and got productive (I am a programmer), and for about a week kept looking things up and adding to my kbd commands if you do this and take things one at a time I actually think you can have fun learning it. Just dont be too hard on yourself, allow mouse use for awhile :) For me it came down to getting a few simple things straight like using nerdtree as file browser, learning how to grep / vimgrep to search, and how to find and replace. I would think if you are just using to edit text you could get up to speed pretty fast. Thanks, for the encouragement, David. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 07, 2011 at 08:58 PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: Thanks for the suggestion, Tim. I'll keep it in mind. No problem. I've really been enjoying vim, but I feel like to get the most out of it you need to a) put the time in to learn it and b) put the time in *configuring* to make it work for you. -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:27 PM, Paul Stewart wrote: Firstly, I do use vim for programming (mainly php and sql), but, I also use it as a text editor for typing and writing out stuff. For example, I use it to keep minutes of meetings I attend while I am listeningthe commands allow me to skip around the page so much faster than if I was using word or another non-vim text editor. Basically, the more you use vim, the faster you becomepersonally, I try to use it whenever I can...I even use the vimperator plugin for firefox...I am so used to the key movements that I hate using the mouse now, it seems slow and foreign to me, almost frustrating. Thanks for the encouragement, Paul. Don't use Word, so Viemu would not useful to me, but I did check it out. The emulation of it in use in Visual Studio is fascinating. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 5:33 PM, John Degen wrote: I used to be a translator. In the final years of this 'career' I used Gvim as a sort of frontend to Microsoft Word and translation software. I found that combination of autocompletion, autocorrection, marks, sessions, the convenience of keyboard only editing, Vim's speed and reliability, and the ease with which complicated commands can be assigned to keystrokes helped me to become both a faster and a more accurate typist. ... So I'd say: use Vim and learn a little every day. You can change litterally everything in Vim, including its looks and what happens if you type \t. You could probably even make it behave like Wordstar. Thanks, John. Hope to find some free time in the next few days just to mess around with it -- actually, to do the tutorial -- and maybe get over the initial hump of total bafflement. -- Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA eew...@bellsouth.net -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Eric Weir eew...@bellsouth.net wrote: I've downloaded and installed a copy of MacVim. I've peeked at a few of the help topics. [I'd like to run the tutorial, but haven't figured out how to do that, yet.] I'm not a programmer. Far from it. I'm intrigued for a least a couple reasons, the main one being the fact that Vim is command-driven, that everything's done from the keyboard. [My very first experience with an editor was with Wordstar on CPM, and I've missed doing everything from the keyboard ever since.] The outliner plugins appeal to me as well. [I was a long-time devote of MaxThink, running it in a DOS Window after moving to Windows from DOS, and in DOSBox under Linux and now on a Mac.] And so does the possibility of using it as a file manager as well as editor. Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? hmm, well I use Vim for programming mainly, but personally I'd use it for anything involving text two more features you might find useful for plain ol' writing: - spell checking :h spell (basically, :set spell, then z= to correct a word) - insert mode word completion :h i_ctrl-p(type the start of a word, then ctrl+p to complete it) -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08/04/11 02:56, Eric Weir wrote: [...] Wow! Even help for help. Cool. I'd gotten the sense already that Vim's help was really good. But help for help. Pretty cool. With a documentation as voluminous as Vim's, you need ways to help you find what you're looking for: analytical table of contents, indexes, help by subject, searching the whole help text for some regular expression, ... When the latter (the :helpgrep command) was added (at patchlevel 6.1.423) I found it pretty cool too. (Then, as a kind of afterthought, :vimgrep arrived in 7.0, which shows how important the help is to Vim development. :-) ) Best regards, Tony. -- All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. -- H. L. Mencken -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 04/07/2011 08:05 PM, Tim Gray wrote: I feel like to get the most out of it you need to a) put the time in to learn it and b) put the time in *configuring* to make it work for you. While I certainly agree with (a), I'm at the other end of the spectrum on (b). One of the things I like most about vi/vim/gvim is that I have it on all my *nix boxes by default (whether vim on Linux and Mac, or nvi on OpenBSD if I haven't yet installed vim) and have installed it on my Win32 boxes...it behaves (mostly) the same everywhere out-of-the-box without any tweaks. It might be a rarity as lots of folks on the list have tricked-out configs, but other people have told similar tales[1]. The cost of losing a config or keeping it in sync across umpteen boxes is more hassle than it's worth to me. Just my $0.02 on it. (and to answer your initial question, I use Vim for all my text editing, whether code, HTML/CSS, or just plain vanilla text-files like to-do lists and emails) -tim [1] http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
I have .vim and .vimrc check into my svn repo along with all my environment files (tcsh). Then keeping in sync is just a svn up away. On 04/07/2011 10:20 PM, Tim Chase wrote: On 04/07/2011 08:05 PM, Tim Gray wrote: I feel like to get the most out of it you need to a) put the time in to learn it and b) put the time in *configuring* to make it work for you. While I certainly agree with (a), I'm at the other end of the spectrum on (b). One of the things I like most about vi/vim/gvim is that I have it on all my *nix boxes by default (whether vim on Linux and Mac, or nvi on OpenBSD if I haven't yet installed vim) and have installed it on my Win32 boxes...it behaves (mostly) the same everywhere out-of-the-box without any tweaks. It might be a rarity as lots of folks on the list have tricked-out configs, but other people have told similar tales[1]. The cost of losing a config or keeping it in sync across umpteen boxes is more hassle than it's worth to me. Just my $0.02 on it. (and to answer your initial question, I use Vim for all my text editing, whether code, HTML/CSS, or just plain vanilla text-files like to-do lists and emails) -tim [1] http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html -- David Ohlemacher Senior Software Engineer Scientific Solutions Inc. 99 Perimeter Rd Nashua New Hampshire 03063 603-880-3784 . o . . . o o o o -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 08/04/11 04:20, Tim Chase wrote:
On 04/07/2011 08:05 PM, Tim Gray wrote:
I feel like to get the most out of it you need to a) put the
time in to learn it and b) put the time in *configuring* to
make it work for you.
While I certainly agree with (a), I'm at the other end of the spectrum
on (b). One of the things I like most about vi/vim/gvim is that I have
it on all my *nix boxes by default (whether vim on Linux and Mac, or nvi
on OpenBSD if I haven't yet installed vim) and have installed it on my
Win32 boxes...it behaves (mostly) the same everywhere out-of-the-box
without any tweaks. It might be a rarity as lots of folks on the list
have tricked-out configs, but other people have told similar tales[1].
The cost of losing a config or keeping it in sync across umpteen boxes
is more hassle than it's worth to me.
Just my $0.02 on it. (and to answer your initial question, I use Vim for
all my text editing, whether code, HTML/CSS, or just plain vanilla
text-files like to-do lists and emails)
-tim
[1]
http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html
My approach to vimrc, colorscheme etc. is that it all grew, I'd be
tempted to say naturally. My first vimrc was
runtime vimrc_example.vim
which isn't much but was already (to me) much better than just -N on the
command-line. Then when I found something I didn't like, I changed it,
usually by adding something at the bottom: my second vimrc was
runtime vimrc_example.vim
filetype indent off
to avoid high-handed intervention in my unsystematic HTML indenting. It
all grew from there, and nowadays it's 688 lines (including empty lines
and comments), not counting a colorscheme and a few plugins that I wrote
or downloaded.
As for keeping it in sync, I don't have your problems: I used to have
one vimrc, %HOME%\_vimrc on a Windows Fat32 partition, symlinked from
wherever ~/.vimrc was on an ext2 (at that time) Linux partition on the
same disk. Now I've scrapped Windows, I don't even use double-boot
anymore, but I've kept the if has('unix') | ... | else | ... | endif
(and similar) constructs. And nowadays I keep my vimrc in the $HOME for
my unprivileged login name, but symlinked from /root/.vimrc so even if I
have to switch from one to the other, Vim behaves identically. That's
the amount of it.
Best regards,
Tony.
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Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 04:15:37PM -0400, Eric Weir wrote: Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? Not at all. I don't program other than writing occasional shell scripts. Most of my use of Vim is for writing prose. Using anything else for composition and editing is unthinkable. Whenever I try to use a word processor or other editor for writing, the document ends up with unwanted auto-formatting and tell-tail Vim commands in the text. Go through the vimtutor included with the program, but also read the user manual (:h usr_toc). It is based on the book Vi IMproved--Vim, which is an in-depth tutorial. The user manual is truly excellent. -- Scott Bicknell -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
Hi, On Thursday, April 7, 2011 10:15:37 PM UTC+2, Eric Weir wrote: Still, as I imagine many are, I'm a bit intimidated complexity of the commands and the steep learning curve. So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? I think it's a matter of how much of your work you will be doing with vim. Learning the vi(m) style to work with plain text pays off if you do most of your text editing tasks in vim. If you still use word processors and other text editors a lot, I personally wouldn't consider vim a good choice. There is also the question how you get text edited with vim into some format you can submit. vim isn't particularly good at editing text with no hard line breaks (tw=0), i.e. soft wrap. In order to get some text formatting into e.g. Word, most likely requires the use of some command line tool that converts the text to something Word can read. I'm not sure such tools are easy to use for somebody who has never written a single line of code. Regards, Tom -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:59 PM, David Ohlemacher wrote: After a fairly short time, you'll start getting irritated with all the rest of the apps that make you pick up the mouse. You'll start to hit 'i' out of habit in your email appand not like seeing an i. I use vim for everything. And I have vim-bindings in *every* application that I use. Here's my setup: IRC: irssi with vi-mode [0] and ii [1] with vim [2] PDF: apvlv [3] Shell: zsh with set -o vi Music: mpd [4] with Pimpd [5] Video: mplayer Readline: set editing-mode vi set keymap vi-insert Browser: Firefox with pentadactyl [6] Writing Mail: mutt, with editor set to vim Oh, and I also use Vim for programming and every other situation where I write text. Pentadactyl even lets you use Vim when entering text in web forms; just press ^i and Vim is launched. 0: https://github.com/trapd00r/irssi-scripts/tree/master/vim-mode 1: http://tools.suckless.org/ii/ 2: http://nion.modprobe.de/blog/archives/440-Using-the-ii-irc-client.html 3: https://code.google.com/p/apvlv/ 4: http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Music_Player_Daemon_Wiki 5: https://github.com/trapd00r/pimpd 6: http://dactyl.sourceforge.net/pentadactyl/ -- Magnus Woldrich m...@japh.se http://japh.se -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 2011-04-07 20:56, Eric Weir wrote: Wow! Even help for help. Cool. I'd gotten the sense already that Vim's help was really good. But help for help. Pretty cool. Indeed, the help in vim is fantastic. Other than that, I'd recommend just reading this list; look up stuff people talk about, don't be afraid to ask. The #vim channel on freenode is also a great place for a more realtime alternative. -- Magnus Woldrich m...@japh.se http://japh.se -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
Re: Any non-programmer users of Vim here?
On 2011-04-07 16:15, Eric Weir wrote: So, I'm wondering if there are any ordinary, nonprogrammer writers here who've gotten comfortable with Vim as a writer's editor -- or is that just ridiculous to think of? Though they sure are programmers, I'd like to point out that Tom Christiansen used Vim when writing the Perl Cookbook [0] (his co-author Nathan Torkington used emacs). 0: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565922433/ -- Magnus Woldrich m...@japh.se http://japh.se -- You received this message from the vim_use maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
