On Dec 30, 2012, at 5:37 PM, Benjamin Klein wrote: > Eric: Yes, this seems to be about the only practical method (short of > jailbreaking) by which we currently can use Vim on an iPad: an external > keyboard for input and a remote server (something other than your actual > local filesystem) for the actual edited files. > > If you are willing to jailbreak your device, though (and this *is* a bit of a > techie-ish thing to do, although I can say from my experience that some of > the more popular tools for this are becoming quite usable for non-hacker-type > users lately), a reasonable-sounding approach would be to do something like > what I now see David Sanson suggested way back in September — use something > like Prompt to ssh into localhost and use whatever vim is available there. I > guess a downside to that approach would be that you don’t necessarily have a > terribly-complete vim built in, but at that point you would be in a position > to compile a flavor of your own choosing, with all of the generally-required > dependencies. I have never yet had occasion to do this myself do perhaps I > should cease to advise you on how best to do it, though. :} > > The last place of all to check in my opinion would be the iOS app. For me > anything short of a standard filesystem would simply be too clumsy to work > with, but worse than that, as of Nov. 14 this year it seems that the iOS app > does not even have Dropbox support, and the only mentioned means of getting > to your files is through iTunes File Sharing. > > So to summarize my rambling here: > > 1. There isn’t yet a practical way of using standard “vim with filesystem” on > iOS *without either jailbreaking or ssh-ing into a remote server.* (If > there’s anyone on the list who knows of something available or being > developed to answer this problem, please point this out to me.) > > 2. The provided iOS keyboard is no good for Vim, so you should use an > external keyboard of one form or another for maximum vimmability (whether a > keyboard case or an Apple wireless keyboard).
Thanks, Benjamin. "SSH-ing into local host" is Greek to me at the moment. But as I say so was Vim a couple years ago. Perhaps I'll consider it down the road. A main use of the iPad for me will be simply reading and annotating pdfs. Writing would be another one if I could get Vim running on it. And I can't imagine Vim without my plugins and .vimrc configuration. The Android options described by Jeroen, especially the one that allows a fully-functioning Vim, is appealing. Couple of questions: Do Android tablets have a file system? [Or is that what would be provided by Jeroen's third option, installing a Debian kit?] Is iOS still a version of Uniix? Sincerely, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA [email protected] "Imagining the other is a powerful antidote to fanaticism and hatred." - Amos Oz -- 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
