On 18/06/09 00:05, Tim Chase wrote:
>
>>>> It is probably buried in the reference documents somewhere.
>>> In all likelyhood, yes -- Vim's documentation is amazingly
>>> detailed& thorough. However *finding* what you want in that
>>> documentation can be a challenge even for folks with years of
>>> experience.
>>
>> That was exactly my point. At times, a flooding of good documentation
>> can leave a newbie seeking an advanced degree in astrophysics. When all
>> they really need is a simple, "hey buddy, you use a match to light fire."
>
> It helps to know how to navigate the help, along with its
> conventions. Using<tab> or control+D after typing some relevant
> key-word shows what vim knows as tagged help. E.g.
>
> :help script<C-D>
>
> where<C-D> is pressing control+D after typing "script". Vim
> will respond with all of the indexed targets (tags) that it knows
> about in the help that match what you've typed.
You can also set up Vim so that
:help foo<Tab>
will get you a menu of all help subjects which include "foo". It isn't
the Vim default, but it's easy to set up, see
:help 'wildmenu'
>
> Additionally, you can use the ":helpgrep" command to search the help:
>
> :helpgrep script
>
> and then use
>
> :cn
> :cp
>
> to navigate to the next/previous hit as detailed at
>
> :help location-list
> :help :helpgrep
>
>
>>> You speak of "the scripts" as if we should know what you mean :)
>>
>> :)<chuckling> You know, the "precious" ones, scripts got from vim.org,
>> not been to Dr. Chip yet. "Keep hearing of this Dr. Chip. Might need to
>> see who they are."
>
> Most of Dr. Chip's scripts are on vim.org -- I believe he keeps
> the stable versions there and the bleeding-edge versions on his
> personal web-site http://mysite.verizon.net/astronaut/vim/
>
> Ben Fritz gave a better summary than I could regarding how to
> install various scripts.
>
> Hope this continues to help you on your way...
>
> -tim
Yes, me too I felt like having lost my precious little needle in a
haystack as big as a house when I first met Vim. But since then I've
found that Vim has tools even to search the help, as described above and at
:help
:help :help
:help {subject}
:help :helpgrep
:help 'wildmenu'
:help quickfix.txt
(the latter for the results of the :helpgrep command). Also, I find the
following mappings very useful to navigate quickfix results (such as,
but not limited to, helpgrep results):
:map <F2> :cnext<CR>
:map <S-F2> :cprev<CR>
Nowadays I feel that Vim is the only program I ever saw whose help was
really worth its name -- EVERYTHING is in there, if you're patient
enough to find it (and it's possible to learn how to use it). Most other
programs' so-called "help" cover only the least needed (because easiest
to find for oneself) 10% or less of what is needed to use them to the
fullest. Or maybe they simply lack the remaining 90% of the features
which make a program "really useful".
There are already a lot of scripts distributed with Vim, they are in the
$VIMRUNTIME directory and its subdirectories. Don't make changes there
(because any upgrade can silently reverse such changes), but, if you
want to make customizations, apply them in your own vimrc and/or gvimrc
(i.e. $HOME/.vimrc, $HOME/_vimrc, $HOME/.gvimrc and/or $HOME/_gvimrc)
and/or in the _other_ directory trees mentioned in the 'runtimepath'
option. None of them exists by default, each of them has the same
structure as $VIMRUNTIME, each directory, subdirectory, or file there
only needs to exist if you have something to put in them, and each of
them has a slightly different purpose.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can.
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