My Customizations

Here is a list of customizations I've made with this setup.

A little rusty at Vim? Look at the Vim Command Review at the bottom of this document.

Languages Supported With Additional Tooling

• Ruby
• Elm
• Elixir
• Go
• JavaScript
• HTML
• CSS
• Markdown

Overall settings

• 2 spaces, no tabs, soft and smart tabbing enabled
• Current column and row highlighted
• Red marker at 80 columns
• Uses MyContrast color scheme tested on almost 100 monitors and projectors in various lighting configurations
• Line numbering and syntax enabled

General Customizations

• ,<spacebar> switches between the two most recent files
• ,sp toggles spell check on and off.
  • zg adds word under cursor to your dictionary
• ,l toggles whitespace character visibility
• ,g will attempt to launch the program for the current file
  • HTML files open with default browser
  • Ruby files run with ruby
  • Elixir files run with elixir
  • Java files compile and run with javac and java
  • JavaScript files run with node
• ,r reloads the Vim configuration
• ,1 switches to the previous tab
• ,2 switches to the next tab
• F5 toggles highlighted search terms on and off
• F6 on OSX opens the Finder to reveal the folder you're working in
• ,x deletes the line without saving it to the clipboard
• ,o creates blank line below cursor without insert mode
• ,O creates blank line above cursor without insert mode

Window movement

• CTRL+j moves down
• CTRL+k moves up
• CTRL+h moves left
• CTRL+l moves right

INSERT mode commands:

• jj in INSERT mode will exit INSERT mode and save the file
• jk in INSERT mode exits INSERT mode

File explorer sidebar

Powered by the NERDTree plugin

• ,d opens and closes the tree displaying contents of current folder
  • press Enter to open the file in the main buffer
  • press i to open the file in a horizontal split
  • press s to open the file in a vertical split
  • press m when on a node to get the menu to add, delete, rename files.

This tree always opens to display the root folder of a project if you are using Subversion or Git. Disable the rooter plugin if you don't want this behavior.

Opening Files with a Fuzzy Search

Powered by the Ctrl-P plugin

• ,f opens the search window. Type part of the filename to locate it.
  
  • Press Ctrl-K and Ctrl-j to go up and down the list
  • Press F5 to refresh file list
• ,b opens search window for buffers only.

Commenting Out Code

Code commenting is powered by NERDCommenter

Use VISUAL mode to select text. Then press:

• ,cc to comment out selected text
• ,cu to uncomment selected text

Ragtag

• Ctrl-x / in insert mode closes the open tag. Press again to close outer tag.

In the following table:

• ^ is the cursor position
• <C-x> is Ctrl+x

Markdown

• :Toc displays a table of contents view for your document in a new Quickfix window

Snippets

Enter a snippet, followed by <Tab>. Based on file types.

HTML

• `html5 generates an html5 skeleton
• 'html5t` generates a simplified HTML5 skeleton
• ijs generates script blocks for inline JS
• image generates image tag with alt
• csslink generates a link tag for CSS
• jqueryref generates a call to load jQuery from CDN
• jslink generates link to call external JS
• textfield generates label and input type="text"
• textfieldbr generates label and input type="text" with a <br> between
• textarea generates label and textarea
• textareabr generates label and textarea with a <br> between
• emailfield generates label and input type="email"
• emailfieldbr generates label and input type="email" with a <br> between
• select generates label and select and a default <option>
• selectbr generates label and select with a <br> between, with a default <option> between
• number generates label and input type="number"
• numberbr generates label and input type="number" with a <br> between
• checkbox generates label and input type="checkbox"
• checkboxbr generates label and input type="checkbox" with a <br> between
• radio generates label and input type="radio"
• radiobr generates label and input type="radio" with a <br> between
• lorem drops in some lorem ipsum text

Grunt

• gruntfile creates skeleton for Gruntfiles
• gtask creates skeleton for a task
• gnpm generates grunt.loadNPMTasks
• ginitconfig generates the initConfig code skeleton
• gconfig generates the grunt.config modular style of config
• gll generates grunt.log.writeln
• gw generates grunt.warn
• gcg generates grunt.config.get

JavaScript

• object generates skeleton for object literal
• objectkey generates the skeleton for an object as a key
• anon generates anonymous function
• listen generates .addEventListener
• keyval generates a sinple key: value snippet
• dce is document.createElement
• dgt is document.getElementsByTagName
• dgi is 'document.getElementById`
• 'acisappendChild`
• fo is a simple for loop`
• prompt is a prompt box
• number is the Number function
• tof is toFixed
• dw is document.write
• dw" is document.write("")
• todo puts in a TODO with datestamp
• note puts in a NOTE with datestamp
• fixme puts in a FIXME with datestamp

Notes and Comments

Supported in Ruby, Markdown, JavaScript

• todo puts in a TODO with datestamp
• note puts in a NOTE with datestamp
• fixme puts in a FIXME with datestamp

Vim Command Review

Modes

• NORMAL is the default mode, for navigation, reviewing, and editing documents.
• VISUAL is where you use the keyboard to select characters to cut or copy
• VISUAL LINE is where you use the keyboard to select lines to cut or copy
• INSERT is where you type text. In Insert mode, Vim behaves like other editors

Getting out of Insert Mode

Multiple options exist because different keyboards and interfaces exist

ESC returns to Normal mode CTRL-C returns to Normal mode CTRL-[ returns to Normal mode

In addition, in this setup, these custom bindings are active:

• jk in INSERT mode will exit INSERT mode and return to NORMAL mode.
• jj in INSERT mode will save the file and then exit INSERT mode and return to NORMAL mode.

Quitting Vim

:q closes the current buffer if it's saved and closes Vim if it's the last buffer :qa closes all buffers that are saved and closes Vim :q! closes the current buffer, discarding unsaved changes, and closes Vim if it's the last buffer :qa! closes all buffers, discarding unsaved changes, and closes Vim :wq saves the current buffer, closes it, and closes Vim if it's the last buffer :wqa saves all open buffers, closes them, and closes Vim

Normal mode commands

Moving

Basic movement

• h move one character left
• j move one row down
• k move one row up
• l move one character right
• w move to beginning of next word
• b move to previous beginning of word
• e move to end of word
• W move to beginning of next word after a whitespace
• B move to beginning of previous word before a whitespace
• E move to end of word before a whitespace

Moving quickly

• gg move to first line
• G move to last line
• nG move to n'th line of file (n is a number; 12G moves to line 12)
• :n<Enter> move to n'th line of file (n is a number; :12<Enter> moves to line 12)
• 0 move to beginning of line
• ^ move to first character of line
• $ move to end of line
• Ctrl-D move half-page down
• Ctrl-U move half-page up
• Ctrl-B page up
• Ctrl-F page down
• H move to top of screen
• M move to middle of screen
• L move to bottom of screen
• z. scroll the line with the cursor to the center of the screen
• zt scroll the line with the cursor to the top
• zb scroll the line with the cursor to the bottom

Editing

• x cuts the character under the cursor
• dd cuts the line
• yy copies the line (yank line)
• p pastes after the cursor
• P pastes in front of the cursor
• yyp duplicates the current line (yank line, paste after cursor)

Getting into Insert Mode so you can type stuff

• i enters Insert mode in front of cursor
• a enters Insert mode after the cursor (appends)
• I enters Insert mode at the start of the line
• A enters Insert mode after the last character of the line (append line)
• o creates a new line below and enters Insert mode
• O creates a new line above and enters Insert mode

Rapid edits

• diw deletes inner word. Place cursor on word and activate.
• ciw changes inner word, removing word under cursor and placing you in Insert mode
• cit changes text in an HTML tag, removing the contents between the tags and placing you in Insert mode
• ci" changes text between quotes, removing the contents between the quotes and placing you in Insert mode