I've been using Vim for three years or so. Apart from the usual bunch of plugins (NERD_tree, snipmate, etc), I have a few scripts I like:
Pretty much everything by Tim Pope - surround.vim, matchit.vim, fugitive, etc.
Fuzzy finder. I don't know how I survived without this until a few months ago. It allows you to enter a search term, and returns fuzzy matches, and you can jump to any of the matches. Things that Fuzzy finder supports include files, buffers, tags, help, etc.
Bufexplorer: One more of my favorites. "\be" brings up a little text file which you can use to manage your buffers. This is similar to Emacs' buffer explorer (C-x C-b). Except since this is also a text buffer, you can use common motions to delete, switch, save buffers, etc. (Another item is minibufexplorer, which shows all the buffers like "tabs". I stopped using this after switching to a more emacs-esque way of keeping buffers open and using only one gvim window").
Bufkill.vim: Is a very useful little tool for me. I use splits a lot, and sometimes killing a buffer closes the split. This small tool has been invaluable. :BD closes the buffer, but keeps the splits in place.
Eclim: You can use Eclim as a frontend for eclipse. I use some fancy eclipse IDEs sometime like CDT, PyDev, Aptana, etc. But eclipse's editor isn't spectacular. Eclim allows me to use vim as the editor and lets eclipse do the heavy lifting - autocomplete, project management etc.
Supertab: Use Tab for all your insert mode completion. Somehow any form of intelligent completion was always very flaky for me with vim. Still, I map this to keyword complete, which is usually pretty helpful.
Remotes: This isn't a plugin, but a native feature. You can use Vim remotes to keep one instance of gvim running and use "gvim --remote" instead of "gvim" to open files inside a single instance, rather than open each file inside a terminal, and close it when you're finished. I found this really helps improve productivity.
I've been using Vim heavily for quite a while now. I almost exclusively open files with Fuzzy Finder (the Text Mate variant). I've never manually managed buffers. I open and close splits frequently, but more or less treat my project as if it were entirely in memory at all times.
So, serious question: What benefit do you get from Bufexplorer, Bufkill, etc? Why should I ever think about buffers?
I use Bufkill and bufexplorer for a very special use case.
I've got $EDITOR set to "gvim --remote --wait" which means that the file is opened in an existing instance of vim. Unlike "gvim --remote" which will return control to the shell the moment the file is opened in gvim, the --wait option forces the command to wait till the file is closed (which is the standard expected behavior for most things like writing git commits, etc).
Now the interesting problem is that I have to kill the buffer rather than quit the editor. so I do a :w and :bd to delete the buffer, which makes sure things go fine on the shell.
Sometimes, if I have opened the file in a split (which is invariably the case), using :BD will ensure that my split isn't closed as well, when the buffer is killed.
Plus, BufExplorer has a very neat little trick which I just discovered recently. Sometimes I can close a buffer and might have to reopen it. So I bring up Bufexplorer and press "u" to undo changes, and I can go reopen any of those buffers.
Regarding use of Vim and Eclipse, the Vrapper project has a good enough emulation of Vi in Eclipse, enough so that I've been able to use it without hitting many limitations in my daily use.
I'm currently using Vrapper, and it's been a year or two since I tried Eclim. But as I recall, it's a question of which is primary.
With Eclim you get all of vim, as you say, but you lose a bit of the native eclipse editor functionality.
With Vrapper you get all of eclipse, and a subset of the core vim commands. It's not vim, but you get to keep all of the features of the native eclipse editor.
Another really useful plugin I need to "release" is a "I'm Feeling Lucky" plugin that opens a browser window with the first Google result of the word the cursor is over--this such a useful general-purpose search that I use it all the time.
* gnupg : Plugin for transparent editing of gpg encrypted files.
Not a plugin, but related: my .vim directory/.vimrc is a symlink to a directory/file in my Dropbox folder, to keep my plugins and settings in sync on multiple PCs.
Not a plugin, but related: my .vim directory/.vimrc is a symlink to a directory/file in my Dropbox folder, to keep my plugins and settings in sync on multiple PCs.
Yes, I started doing the exact same thing.
Same for my ~/.bash_profile.
Also if you find yourself editing files in your dropbox folder, it helps to have
set directory=~/tmp/
in your .vimrc so that it doesn't keep creating .swp files in your dropbox folder, which keep getting synced.
If you watch the PeepCode screencasts "Smash into Vim", http://peepcode.com/products/smash-into-vim-ii, (I only watched part two) they have a .vim directory that you can use as a starter. Specifically it uses the pathogen plugin to organize the plugins into a bundle directory, which i find much nicer.
Its a constantly evolving thing, wherever I find a pain point, or an optimization to be made, it gets changed.
The focus is mostly python development on OSX using MacVim, but I have isolated most things that require MacVim/GVim so they don't load in a terminal.
It doesn't matter so much because whenever I want to get setup, I just git clone those directories into my home directory but I am seriously looking into Pathogen, which seems like a saner way to handle packages in vim.
edit: I just noticed there is a little whitespace bug in my django template handling, so be aware of that until I fix it.
I use almost no configuration changes either. I use a lot of machines, and I can't be bothered to install configs and plugins on every machine I come across. If I become dependent on weird plugins, what do I do on a machine that doesn't have them?
Also, I haven't even come close to mastering all of the commands and other things that are already built into vim. If I haven't mastered all of those, why do I need to add more? Instead of changing vim, I should change myself. It's much easier, and it transfers to every machine automatically.
Other than the usual ones mentioned here, in a rails specific environment, I use rsense[1], acp[2], rails.vim[3]. This works really well for me and I would recommend it to any rails developer.
To anyone using fuzzy-finder or Jamis' fuzzy-finder-textmate, I highly recommend checking out Command-T. I find it to be much faster and more stable. I was never all that thrilled with fuzzy finder, so this has been a joy to use.
Fugitive has been the most lifechanging one. Takes working with git to the next level:
- view diffs of the current file with vimdiff
- stage from within vim
- commit from within vim
- blame from within vim
- repository-wide grep within vim
I'd advise putting your vim directory (or ALL of your dotfiles) under version control. To keep things clean, the first thing you should do is install Tim Pope's pathogen plugin which allows you to install each plugin in its own self-contained directory under ~/.vim/bundle/plugin-name/, and it will autoload everything for you.
Then, you can just extract each plugin under that bundle directory, or if they're managed by the same version control software you're using, you can use something like git submodules to track the plugins automatically. Add this to the top of your ~/.vimrc file:
filetype off
call pathogen#runtime_append_all_bundles()
filetype plugin indent on
...and you're off to the races. Let's say you want to add NERD_tree:
$ git submodule add http://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree.git bundle/nerdtree
$ git submodule init
$ git commit -m 'add nerd tree plugin as submodule'
From then on, you'll be able to track upstream changes to the plugin, and everything is self-contained so you don't have to worry about copying all the files into /doc, /ftplugin, /syntax, etc. The one thing you'll want to do is generate all of the help docs after you have your plugins installed by loading up vim and running:
:call pathogen#helptags()
The list of what I use goes a little something like this:
@ pathogen - to cleanly organize all of your plugins
@ bufexplorer - to explore your open buffers
@ command-t - a better fuzzy finder for opening files
@ endwise - add proper end statements for ruby code
@ fugitive - fantastic git wrapper
@ matchit - jump to matching brackets or logical statements
@ nerdtree - navigate and manipulate files
@ pastie - post code to pastie.org
@ repeat - adds the ability to repeat functions with .
@ surround - alter stuff that surrounds text like quotes and html tags
@ taglist - helpful source code browser
Beyond that, I have a bunch of syntax files for various languages and file formats.
Realistically though, if you're just starting out. Learn how to use the editor first, then if you notice certain use cases that you don't have with built-in features (and there are a TON), then start looking for plugins to make your life easier. There's a lot you can do with custom settings and functions in your ~/.vimrc file too, so it will take time (years) to build up what works best for you. Be patient, it's worth it!
vindect: vim indentation detection. Set the tabs vs spaces settings and shift width to what the file currently uses. Indispensable for hacking code someone else wrote.
a: flip between .c and .h files a bit easier.
snipMate: code snippets. Filling out the shebang line, and C/python main idioms in throwaway experiments are the main reason I use this.
vcscommand: I only really use VCSVimDiff, but it works great for viewing changes in the current file when using git, mercurial and subversion.
emacs: inspired by vimacs[0], I also fixed ex command line editing to work with readline/emacs keys. Mapping Alt in insert mode is really buggy, so I use to ctrl-g instead of esc.
patchreview: like diffpatch, but for multiple files and you can specify a base path.
I have a whole bunch of my own silly plugins that I've created over the years, mostly unreleased, that do lots of great stuff. The :make and :grep quickfix highlighting I lifted from eclim is particularly useful.
I miss emacs.vim and vindect the most when I use vim on some other machine that doesn't have them.
None. I use vim on so many different machines, so it isn't feasible for me to move a bunch of plugins around. I'll very rarely use BufferList, if it's installed, I often forget it's there.
I also use a lot of different machines, but I keep all my vimfiles, including plugins, in a repository. This keeps it fairly simple to add plugins to all computers.
A favorite that hasn't been mentioned yet: fix-whitespace, http://github.com/bronson/vim-trailing-whitespace Highlights trailing whitespace in red and offers the :FixWhitespace command to obliterate it.
My favorite would be LustyExplorer: http://github.com/sjbach/lusty .
Why?
Among all the different file browser plugins, I found Lusty to be the most easiest to use while being intuitive.
latex-suite; it's a must have if you write LaTeX docs. If you work in an office where everyone uses Word and PPT, being able to write docs in Vim, format with LaTeX and compile to PDF for distribution to others is handy.
I have used vim some time now do not use any scripts. Only 3rd party thing I have is zenburn colorscheme. I would recommend learning vanilla vim properly first, then let it grow based on your needs with scripts.
@ pathogen - to manage all the other plugins neatly
@ delimitMate - autoclose quotes, (,{,[ - you can define protected regions (e.g., strings) for no autoclose
@ vim-endwise - automagically enter an 'end' as needed in Ruby files
@ vim-bufexplorer - work better with buffers
@ vim-fugitive - lots of Git goodness for Vim
@ vim-surround - add, delete and change common pairs easily
@ IndexedSearch - show total count number and current hit for searches
@ gist - add support for sending buffers to gist or editing gists via Vim
@ vim-pastie - adds support for http://pastie.org/
@ rvm.vim - show current Ruby interpreter in status line
@ vim-perlbrew - ditto for current Perl interpreter
http://github.com/telemachus/vim-perlbrew
http://github.com/telemachus/vim-varia
http://github.com/telemachus/dotfiles/tree/master/vim/