Sorry I'm late, but I just listened to the Vim BOF session that Bram
mentioned three months ago.
In the talk, Bram sounded quite evangelical with regard to promoting
Vim usage, and he asked for suggestions on how he should best spend
his limited time in working towards a new version ("Vim 8").
I am posting this introductory message with my response, plus a
second message describing a feature I would like ("EncryptLine").
The best way to expand Vim usage IMHO would be to work out better
default settings to improve the first hour of contact. In addition,
perform necessary fixups, but resist new features.
If I were starting Vim usage now, I would probably abandon it as
soon as I discovered that pressing PageUp did NOT reverse the effect
of PageDown. I still hate that! Vim has many wonderous features, but
I imagine that many people don't stay to find them because of
irritations like PgUp/PgDn.
Highlighting all matches when searching is excellent, but there
needs to be a way for a new user to turn it off. I map Space for
this, however, it would be better to press Escape to clear
highlights and message text (if Escape is pressed while in Normal
mode, remove search highlights and clear any message). Maybe also
have a way for this feature to be turned off.
I won't say more now. If Bram feels that improved defaults would be
worth investigating, a discussion here would probably be best.
OTOH people who dream in Vim script may not be the best source of
ideas on how Vim should be configured to win new converts.
John
