Before you install Vim, please refer to the OS specific release notes and information about compiling and usage of Vim at -

If you do not have the Vim package (RPM, DEB, tar, zip) then download the Vim source code by ftp from the official Vim site

To use Vim install the following RPM packages on Redhat Linux -

	rpm -i vim*.rpm
OR do this -
	rpm -i vim-enhanced*.rpm
	rpm -i vim-X11*.rpm
	rpm -i vim-common*.rpm
	rpm -i vim-minimal*.rpm

You can see the list of files the vim rpm installs by -

	rpm -qa | grep ^vim | xargs rpm -ql | less 
or 
	rpm -qa | grep ^vim | awk '{print "rpm -ql " $1 }' | /bin/sh | less

and browse output using j,k, CTRL+f, CTRL+D, CTRL+B, CTRL+U or using arrow keys, page up/down keys. See 'man less'.

Note that the RPM packages for Redhat Linux use a Motif interface. If you have installed the GTK libraries on your system, consider compiling Vim from the source code for a clean GUI interface. For information on compiling Vim from the source code, see "Install Vim on Unixes", below.

To install Vim on Debian Linux (GNU Linux), login as root and when connected to internet type -

apt-get install vim vim-rt

It will download the latest version of vim, install it, configure it. The first package listed is vim, the standard editor, compiled with X11 support, vim-rt is the vim runtime, it holds all the syntax and help files.

On Debian 3.0 (woody) and above, use 'apt-get install vim' instead. The vim-rt package is part of the main vim package.

For other flavors of unixes like Solaris, HPUX, AIX, Sinix, SCO download the source code file ( see Section 1.1, “ Before you Install ” )

 
	zcat vim.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
	cd vim-5.5/src
	./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
	make
	make install

You can exclude prefix option if you want to install in default location in /usr/local. If the graphics version 'gvim' gives trouble then try with

	./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --enable-gui=motif

See Section 2, “ Install Vim on Microsoft Windows 95/NT ” .

Read the release notes for Vim on OS/2, see Section 1.1, “ Before you Install ” .

At present there is no native PM version of the GUI version of vim: The OS/2 version is a console application. However, there is now a Win32s-compatible GUI version, which should be usable by owners of Warp 4 (which supports Win32s) in a Win-OS/2 session. The notes in this file refer to the native console version.

To run Vim, you need the emx runtime environment (at least rev. 0.9b). This is generally available as (ask Archie about it):

    emxrt.zip     emx runtime package

Read the release notes for Vim on OS/2, see Section 1.1, “ Before you Install ” .

The author of Vim on Mac (old version vim 3.0) is

Eric Fischer
5759 N. Guilford Ave
Indianapolis IN 46220 USA

Email to enf@pobox.com

Mac Bug Report When reporting any Mac specific bug or feature change, makes sure to include the following address in the "To:" or "Copy To:" field.

dany.stamant@sympatico.ca

Vim compiles out of the box with the supplied CodeWarrior project when using CodeWarrior 9. If you are using a more recent version (e. g. CW Pro) you have to convert the project first. When compiling Vim for 68k Macs you have to open the "size" resource in ResEdit and enable the "High level events aware" button to get drag and drop working. You have to increase the memory partition to at least 1024 kBytes to prevent Vim from crashing due to low memory.

 vim:ts=8:sw=8:tw=78:

In order make MS Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP even more user-friendly, install the bash shell (Bourne Again Shell). Install "http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/setup.exe" (Cygwin-setup program) and select bash and other common utilities. The CygWin main site is at "http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin" . With CygWin the Windows 2000 computer will look like Linux/Unix box!! And combined with gvim editor, the Windows 2000 gives programmers more power. The cygwin home is at "http://cygwin.com" .

You may also want to install MKS in case you are planning to use Java and Java compilers. Get MKS from "http://www.mks.com" .

After installing the Cygwin, insert some useful aliases in ~/.bash_profile file. Open a cygwin window and at bash prompt -

bash$ cd $HOME
bash$ gvim .bash_profile
set -o vi
alias ls='ls --color '
alias cp='cp -i '
alias mv='mv -i '
alias rm='rm -i '
alias vi='gvim '
alias vip='gvim ~/.bash_profile & '
alias sop='. ~/.bash_profile '
alias mys='mysql -uroot -p '
PATH=$PATH:"/cygdrive/c/Program Files/mysql/bin"

With color ls, when you do ls you will see all the directory names and files in different colors (it looks great!!). With set -o vi, you can use the command line history editing just as in linux.

The default background color of MS DOS prompt window is black and white text. You must change the color, fontsize and window size to make it more pleasing. On MS Windows 2000, click on button Start->Run and type "cmd" and hit return. On MS Windows 95/98/NT click on Start->Programs->MSDOS Prompt which will bring up MSDOS window. Right click on the top left corner of the MSDOS prompt window and select properties. Select color background and enter R=255, G=255, B=190 (red, green, blue) for lightyellow background and text foreground color to black (R=0, G=0, B=0). This sets background to light yellow and text foreground to black and this combination is most pleasing to human eyes. If you have problems with colors in cygwin bash window when doing 'man ls', set the text color to "marune".

For Windows95 see Color for MS-DOS prompt window .

Vim has many of the features of EditPlus editor and in near future will try incorporate many good features of EditPlus editor :

The EditPlus is at EditPlus . See also TextPad and UltraEdit .

You can change the settings like color, bold/normal fonts in your $HOME/.gvimrc file. It is very strongly recommended that you set the background color to lightyellow or white with black foreground. Ergonomics says that best background color is lightyellow or white with black foreground. Hence change the variable 'guibg' in your $HOME/.gvimrc file as follows:

	highlight Normal guibg=lightyellow

The sample gvimrc from /usr/doc/vim-common-5.3/gvimrc_example is as follows:

" Vim
" An example for a gvimrc file.
" The commands in this are executed when the GUI is started.
"
" To use it, copy it to
"     for Unix and OS/2:  ~/.gvimrc
"             for Amiga:  s:.gvimrc
"  for MS-DOS and Win32:  $VIM\_gvimrc
" Make external commands work through a pipe instead of a pseudo-tty
"set noguipty
" set the X11 font to use. See 'man xlsfonts' on unix/linux
" set guifont=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-130-75-75-c-70-iso8859-1
set guifont=8x13bold
"set guifont=9x15bold
"set guifont=7x14bold
"set guifont=7x13bold
"
" Highly recommended to set tab keys to 4 spaces
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
"
" The opposite is 'set wrapscan' while searching for strings....
set nowrapscan
"
" The opposite is set noignorecase
set ignorecase
" 
" You may want to turn off the beep sounds (if you want quite) with visual bell
" set vb
" Source in your custom filetypes as given below -
" so $HOME/vim/myfiletypes.vim
" Make command line two lines high
set ch=2
" Make shift-insert work like in Xterm
map <S-Insert> <MiddleMouse>
map! <S-Insert> <MiddleMouse>
" Only do this for Vim version 5.0 and later.
if version >= 500
  " I like highlighting strings inside C comments
  let c_comment_strings=1
  " Switch on syntax highlighting.
  syntax on
  " Switch on search pattern highlighting.
  set hlsearch
  " For Win32 version, have "K" lookup the keyword in a help file
  "if has("win32")
  "  let winhelpfile='windows.hlp'
  "  map K :execute "!start winhlp32 -k <cword> " . winhelpfile <CR>
  "endif
  " Hide the mouse pointer while typing
  set mousehide
  " Set nice colors
  " background for normal text is light grey
  " Text below the last line is darker grey
  " Cursor is green
  " Constants are not underlined but have a slightly lighter background
  highlight Normal guibg=grey90
  highlight Cursor guibg=Green guifg=NONE
  highlight NonText guibg=grey80
  highlight Constant gui=NONE guibg=grey95
  highlight Special gui=NONE guibg=grey95
endif

See also sample vimrc used for console mode vim command from /usr/doc/vim-common-5.3/vimrc_example.

You can set some of the Vim properties in Xdefaults file.

WARNING: Do not set Vim*geometry as it will break the gvim menu, use Vim.geometry instead .

Edit the $HOME/.Xdefaults file and add the following lines:

! GVim great Colors.
Vim*useSchemes:		all
Vim*sgiMode:		true
Vim*useEnhancedFSB:	true
Vim.foreground:		Black
!Vim.background:	lightyellow2
Vim*background:		white
! Do NOT use Vim*geometry , this will break the menus instead 
! use Vim.geometry. Asterisk between Vim and geometry is not allowed.
! Vim.geometry: widthxheight
Vim.geometry:		88x40
!Vim*font:		-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso8859-15-*5
Vim*menuBackground: yellow
Vim*menuForeground: black

In order for this change to take effect, type -

	xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xdefaults
	man xrdb

You can also edit the ~/.gvimrc file to change the background colors

	gvim $HOME/.gvimrc
The best background color is lightyellow or white, with black foreground.
	highlight Normal guibg=lightyellow

This section below is obtained from gvim session by typing 'help syntax' -

bash$ gvim some_test
:help syntax

Click on the menu Window=>Close_Others to close other Window. And then do CTRL+] on 'Syntax Loading Procedure' menu which will take you there. (Use CTRL+T to rewind and go back).

If a file type you want to use is not detected, then there are two ways to add it.

Method 1: You can modify the $VIMRUNTIME/filetype.vim file, but this is not recommended as it will be overwritten when you install a new version of Vim.

Method 2: Create a file in $HOME/vim/myfiletypes.vim and put these lines in it -

"
" *************************************************************
" Filename : $HOME/vim/myfiletypes.vim
" See the document by typing :help autocmd within vim session
" see also the doc at /usr/share/vim/doc/autocmd.txt
" This file will setup the autocommands for new filetypes 
" using the existing syntax-filetypes.
" For example when you open foo.prc it will use syntax of plsql
" Basically does :set filetype=prc inside vim
" Add a line in $HOME/.gvimrc as below:
" so $HOME/vim/myfiletypes.vim
"
" *************************************************************
augroup filetype
        au!
        au! BufRead,BufNewFile *.phc    set filetype=php
        au! BufRead,BufNewFile *.mine   set filetype=mine
        au! BufRead,BufNewFile *.xyz    set filetype=drawing
        au! BufRead,BufNewFile *.prc    set filetype=plsql
augroup END

Then add a line in your $HOME/.vimrc and $HOME/.gvimrc file to source in the file "myfiletypes.vim". ( CAUTION: You MUST put this in both vimrc and gvimrc files in order for this to work) Example:

	so $HOME/vim/myfiletypes.vim

NOTE: Make sure that you set "so myfiletypes.vim" before switching on file type detection. This is must be before any ":filetype on" or ":syntax on" command.

See the documentation on autocommand at -

Your file will then be sourced in after the default FileType autocommands have been installed. This allows you to overrule any of the defaults, by using ":au!" to remove any existing FileType autocommands for the same pattern. Only the autocommand to source the scripts.vim file is given later. This makes sure that your autocommands in "myfiletypes.vim" are used before checking the contents of the file.

Instead of using "Syntax" menu you can also manually source in the syntax file. Edit the file with gvim and at : (colon) command give 'so' command. For example -

	gvim foo.pc
	:so $VIM/syntax/esqlc.vim

The syntax source files are at /usr/share/vim/syntax/*.vim. Vim supports more than 120 different syntax files for different languages like C++, PERL, VHDL, JavaScript,...and so on!!

Each syntax file supports one or more default file name extensions, for example, JavaScript syntax file supports the *.js extension. If you happen to use an extension that conflicts with another default syntax file (such as adding JavaScript to a *.html file) than you can source in the additional syntax file with the command :so $VIM/syntax/javascript.vim. To avoid all of this typing, you can create a soft link like -

	ln -s $VIM/syntax/javascript.vim js
	gvim foo.html  (... this file contains javascript functions and HTML)
	:so js

To recursively process the tags file for the entire directory :

$ cd $HOME
$ ctags -R

This will recurse the directory underneath and create a tag file all the files under the directory and beneath. But to use this tag file you must set the following in the vim session or modify .gvimrc file

$ vi ~/.gvimrc
" Set the tag file search order
set tags=./tags,tags,~/tags,/home/john/ccplus/tags

Or in the Vim session you set the tags with colon command:

$ vi somefile.cpp
:set tags=./tags,tags,~/tags,/home/john/ccplus/tags

Since ctags does not directly support the Embedded SQL/C (ESQL) language, the following shell script can be used to create tags for esql. ESQL/C is database SQL commands embedded inside the "C" programs. Oracle's ESQL/C is called Pro*C and Sybase, Informix have ESQL/C and PostgreSQL has product "ecpg".

Save this file as "sqltags.sh" and do chmod a+rx tags_gen.sh.

#!/bin/sh
# Program to create ctags for ESQL, C++ and C files
ESQL_EXTN=pc
tag_file1=tags_file.1
tag_file2=tags_file.2
which_tag=ctags
rm -f $tag_file1 $tag_file2 tags
aa=`ls *.$ESQL_EXTN`
#echo $aa
for ii in $aa 
do
	#echo $ii
	jj=`echo $ii | cut -d'.' -f1`
	#echo $jj
	if [ ! -f $jj.cpp ]; then
		echo " "
		echo " "
		echo "***********************************************"
		echo "ESQL *.cpp files does not exist.. "
		echo "You must generate the *.cpp from *.pc file"
		echo "using the Oracle Pro*C pre-compiler or Sybase"
		echo "or Informix esql/c pre-compiler."
		echo "And then re-run this command"
		echo "***********************************************"
		echo " "
		exit
	fi
	rm -f tags
	$which_tag $jj.cpp
	kk=s/$jj\.cpp/$jj\.pc/g
	#echo $kk > sed.tmp
	#sed -f sed.tmp tags >> $tag_file1
	#sed -e's/sample\.cpp/sample\.pc/g' tags >> $tag_file1
	sed -e $kk tags >> $tag_file1
done
# Now handle all the C++/C files - exclude the ESQL *.cpp files
rm -f tags $tag_file2
bb=`ls *.cpp *.c`
aa=`ls *.$ESQL_EXTN`
for mm in $bb 
do
	ee=`echo $mm | cut -d'.' -f1`
	file_type="NOT_ESQL"
	# Exclude the ESQL *.cpp and *.c files
	for nn in $aa 
	do
		dd=`echo $nn | cut -d'.' -f1`
		if [ "$dd" = "$ee" ]; then
			file_type="ESQL"
			break
		fi
	done
	if [ "$file_type" = "ESQL" ]; then
		continue
	fi
	rm -f tags
	$which_tag $mm
	cat tags >> $tag_file2
done
mv -f $tag_file2 tags
cat  $tag_file1 >> tags
rm -f $tag_file1
# Must sort tags file for it work properly ....
sort tags > $tag_file1
mv $tag_file1 tags

The shell script given below can be used to generate tags for a very large variety of programs written in JavaScript, PHP/FI scripts, Korn shell, C shell, Bourne shell and many others. This is a very generic module.

Save this file as tags_gen.sh and do chmod a+rx tags_gen.sh.

#!/bin/sh
tmp_tag=tags_file
tmp_tag2=tags_file2
echo " "
echo " "
echo " "
echo " "
echo " "
echo "Generate tags for ...."
while :
do
	echo "    Enter file extension for which you want to generate tags."
	echo -n "    File-extension should be like sh, js, ksh, etc... : "
	read ans
	if [ "$ans" == "" ]; then
		echo " "
		echo "Wrong entry. Try again!"
	else
		break
	fi
done
\rm -f $tmp_tag
aa=`ls *.$ans`
for ii in $aa
do
	jj=`echo $ii | cut -d'.' -f1`
	#echo $jj
	cp $ii $jj.c
	ctags $jj.c
	echo "s/$jj.c/$ii/g" > $tmp_tag2
	sed -f $tmp_tag2 tags >> $tmp_tag
	\rm -f tags $jj.c
done
sort $tmp_tag > tags
\rm -f $tmp_tag $tmp_tag2

You would be using gdb extensively along with Vi. Debugging is the most important aspect of programming as the major cost of software projects goes into debugging and testing.

To debug C++/C programs use 'gdb' tool. See 'man gdb' . You must compile your programs with -g3 option like

          gcc -g3 foo.c foo_another.c sample.c 
        

To set up easy aliases do -

          Setup an alias in your ~/.bash_profile alias gdb='gdb 
          -directory=/home/src -directory=/usr/myname/src ' Give - gdb foo.cpp 
          gdb> dir /hom2/another_src This will add to file search path 
          gdb> break 'some_class::func<TAB><TAB> This will 
          complete the function name saving you typing time... and will output 
          like - gdb> break 'some_class::function_foo_some_where(int aa, 
          float bb)' 
        

Pressing TAB key twice is the command line completion, which will save you lots of typing time. This is one of the most important technique of using gdb.

To get online help do -

          gdb> help Gives online help gdb> help breakpoints Gives more 
          details about breakpoints. 
        

To set breakpoints and do debugging

          unixprompt> gdb exe_filename gdb> b main This will put 
          breakpoint in main() function gdb> b 123 This will put breakpoint 
          in line 123 of the current file gdb> help breakpoints Gives more 
          details about breakpoints. 
        

To analyze the core dumps do

          unixprompt> gdb exe_filename core gdb> bt Gives backtrace of 
          functions and line numbers where the program failed gdb> help 
          backtrace Gives more details about backtrace. 
        

You can also use GUI version of gdb called xxgdb.

See also gdb interface to Vim at "http://www.lxlinux.com/gdbvim.tgz" .

Memory leak tools -

The following Vi resources are available on internet:

On Linux system see the tutorial at /usr/doc/vim-common-5.*/tutor, on other unix systems go to directory where vim is installed and look for doc directory.

	bash$ cd /usr/doc/vim-common*/tutor
	bash$ less README.txt
	bash$ cp tutor $HOME
	bash$ cd $HOME
	bash$ less tutor

There are many Vi Tutorials on internet. In Yahoo (Lycos, excite or Hotbot) enter "Vi Tutorial" in search field and search engine will return many pointers.

The vi cursor movement commands allow you to position the cursor in the file and/or on the screen efficiently, with a minimum number of keystrokes. There are oodles of cursor movement commands - don't try memorizing them all at once! Later, we'll see that much of the power of vi comes from mixing cursor movement commands with other commands to delete, change, yank (copy), and filter text.

Please edit a large text file (say, wknight ) so you can experiment with each command as it is described. Keep in mind these commands will only work in Command Mode, not Insert Mode; if you start getting your "commands" in your text, press the ESC key to return to Command Mode.

Many of the movement commands discussed above can be preceded with a repeat count; the movement is simply repeated the given number of times:

For some commands, the "repeat counts" has special meaning:

For some commands (e.g., ^) the repeat count is ignored; for others (e.g., / and ? ) it is illegal

We've seen that dd deletes the current line. This can be used with a repeat count: 3dd deletes three lines, the current line, and the two following lines.

The d command can be used as a "prefix" on most of the movement commands above to delete nearly arbitrary chunks of text. When used with d, the movement commands are called target specifiers. d can be given a repeat count. (As you try these experiments, remember to press u after each command to undo the deletion).

To delete single characters, use x. x can be given a repeat count:

x is actually just an abbreviation of d1; that is, delete one character right.

The c command is similar to d, except it toggles vi into Insert Mode, allowing the original (unwanted) text to be changed to something else.

For example, put the cursor on the beginning of a word (press w to get to the beginning of the next word). Then, press cw to change that word. On the screen, the last character in the word being changed will be replaced with a $ symbol indicating the boundary of the change; type in a new word (you will overwrite the original word on the screen) and press the ESC key when done. Your input may be longer or shorter than the word being changed.

Put the cursor at the beginning of a line containing at least three words, and try c3w to change three words. Try c$ to change to the end of the current line. In all cases where the change affects only the current line, the boundary of the change is indicated with $.

When a change affects more than just the current line, vi deletes the original text from the screen and toggles into Insert Mode. For example, try c3+ to change the current and the next three lines; vi deletes the four original lines from the screen and toggles into Insert Mode in a new blank line. As usual, press the ESC key when you have finished entering your new text.

Some other change commands:

The y command yanks a copy of text into a buffer; the yanked text can then be put (or pasted) elsewhere in the file using p or P.

The simplest form of yank is yy to yank the current line; after yy, try p to put a copy of the yanked line after the cursor. Following yy, you can make as many copies of the yanked line as you want by moving up and down in the file and pressing p.

To copy multiple lines, try, for example, 5yy (yank the current and next four lines). p puts a copy of the yanked lines after the cursor; the sequence 5yyp "works" but it probably doesn't do what you would like. The P command is like p, but puts a copy of the yanked text ahead of the cursor; try the sequence 5yyP.

Other yank commands:

The filter command ! , prompts for the name of a UNIX command (which should be a filter), then passes selected lines through the filter, replacing those selected line in the vi buffer with the output of the filter command. vi 's ability to pass nearly arbitrary chunks of text through any UNIX filter adds incredible flexibility to vi , at no "additional cost" in size or performance to vi itself.

Some examples will help illustrate. Create a line in your file containing just the word who and absolutely no other text. Put the cursor on this line, and press !! This command is analogous to dd, cc, or yy, but instead of deleting, changing, or yanking the current line, it filters the current line. When you press the second !, the cursor drops down to the lower left corner of the screen and a single ! is displayed, prompting you to enter the name of a filter. As the filter name, type sh and press the Return key. sh (the Bourne shell) is a filter! It reads standard input, does some processing of its input (that is, executes commands), and sends its output (the output of those commands) to standard output. Filtering the line containing who through sh causes the line containing who to be replaced with a list of the current users on the system - right in your file!

Try repeating this process with date . That is, create a line containing nothing but the word date , then put the cursor on the line, and press !!sh and the Return key. The line containing date is replaced with the output of the date command.

Put your cursor on the first line of the output of who. Count the number of lines. Suppose, for example, the number is six. Then select those six lines to be filtered through sort; press 6!!sort and the Return key. The six lines will be passed through sort, and sort's output replaces the original six lines.

The filter command can only be used on complete lines, not on characters or words.

Some other filter commands (here, < CR > means press Return):

You can mark lines and characters to be used as targest for movement, deletion, change, yanking, and filtering using the command mc, where c is a lowercase letter.

For example, put the cursor in the middle of some word and press ma. This marks the character under the cursor as mark a.

Now, move the cursor off the marked character and to a different line ( use the cursor keys, CTRL-u, or whatever). To return to the marked line, press 'a (that is, single quote, then a). This moves to the first non-white space character on the line containing mark a.

Move off that line again. To return to the marked character, press `a (that is, backquote, then a). This moves on top of the character marked with a.

Marking is usually used with deleting, changing, yanking or filtering. For example, move the cursor to a line other than the one containing mark a, and then press d'a (d, single quote, a). This deletes from the current line to and including the line marked with a.

Put the cursor in the middle of a different word and press mb to set mark b. Now, move the cursor away from that word (but only a few lines, so you can see what we're about to do more easily), and then press d`b (d, backquote, b). This deletes from the current CHARACTER to and including the CHARACTER marked with b.

As another example, to sort the output of who, mark the first line (ma), then move the cursor to the last line and press !'asort and the Return key.

If you jump to a mark and decide you want to jump back to whatever you jumped from, you can press '' (jump back to line) or `` (jump back to character).

When you delete, change, or yank text, the original text is stored (until the next delete, change, or yank) in an unnamed buffer from which it can be put using p or P. Using the unnamed buffer, only the most recently deleted, changed or yanked text may be recovered.

If you wish to delete, change, or yank multiple sections of text and remember them all (up to a maximum of 26), you can give a buffer name ahead of the delete change or yank command. A buffer name has the form "c (double quote, lowercase c).

For example, press "ayy to yank the current line into buffer a, then move to a different line and press "byy to yank that line into buffer b. Now, move elsewhere in the file and press "ap and "bp to put copies of the text stored in buffers a and b.

Some other named buffer commands:

To substitute one chunk of text for another in lines throughout your file, use the :s command. Some substitute examples:

All colon commands begin with a colon; when you press the colon, the cursor drops to the lower left corner of the screen, and a colon prompt is displayed waiting for you to finish your colon command.

Some important examples:

Various options affect the "feel" of vi . You can display all the various options that can be set using the colon command :set all. You can also use set to change options.

For example, if you want to see line numbers for the lines in the file you're editing, use the command :set number. To turn off line numbering, use the command :set nonumber. Most options can be abbreviated; :set nu turns on line numbering and :set nonu turns off line numbering.

If you :set nomagic, the special meanings of regular expression characters (period, asterisk, square bracket, etc.) are switched off. Use :set magic to restore the special meanings.

Some options take a value. For example, :set tabstop=4 causes tabs to be displayed as four space characters, rather than the usual eight.

If you find you always want certain options set certain ways, you can put the set commands you want ina file .exrc, or you can set up the environment variable EXINIT to specify the options you want.

For example, if your login shell is Bourne shell, this line could go in your .profile file:

	EXINIT='set nomagic nu tabstop=4'; export EXINIT

If your login shell is a C shell, this line could go in your .login file:

	setenv EXINIT 'set nomagic nu tabstop=4'

If you find you're performing a series of simple commands over and over, you can map the command series to an unused command key using the :map command. If your mapping must include control characters such as Return key (CTRL-M in ASCII) or the ESC (CTRL-[ in ASCII) key, precede such characters with CTRL-v to suppress their usual special meaning.

For example, this command maps CTRL-A to move the cursor forward 55 lines, then back up to the most recent blank line, then change that blank line to a formfeed (CTRL-L) and three blank lines. That is, each CTRL-A will paginate the next page, without splitting paragraphs across pages.

Note: In this command, each control character is shown as ^C, where C is some uppercase letter. For example, CTRL-M is shown as ^M. Also, when you enter this command you will not see the CTRL-v characters as shown: each CTRL-v merely suppresses the usual special meaning of the following control character, so when you press the sequence ^V^M, all you will see on the screen is ^M. In this command, ^M is the Return key and ^[ is the ESC key.

	:map ^A  55+?^$^V^Mcc^V^L^V^M^V^M^V^M^V^[

You can edit multiple files with vi by giving multiple file names as command line arguments:

	vi croc fatherw  wknight

Three colon commands are used to move through the multiple files:

The :n, :N, and :rew commands are somewhat clumsy, but there are some important benefits: the contents of named buffers ("a, "b, "c, etc.) are remembered across files, so you can use :n and :rew with p and P to copy text back and forth between files. Also, the most recent search string for the / and ? commands remembered across files, so you can do repetitive searches in multiple files rather easily.

For example, try the following experiment: First get out of vi , then execute vi with croc and wknight as arguments:

	$ vi croc wknight

In croc, search for the

/the < CR >

Yank this line into buffer a:

"ayy

Now go to the next file (you've made no change to croc, so this will work):

:n < CR >

Search for the "next" line containing the, without retyping the search string:

n

Put a copy of buffer a after the current line in wknight:

"ap

Move down two lines, and yank the current line into buffer b:

jj"byy

Save the changes to wknight

:w < CR >

Now, rewind to croc

:rew < CR >

Search again, and put a copy of buffer b after the found line:

n"bp

Save the changes, and exit vi

ZZ

This tutorial was intended to introduce some of the vi capabilities that you might overlook in your system's vi manual or that might not be mentioned in the manual (different systems have manuals of widely varying quality).

You will not be a vi expert after reading this tutorial, but you will have a good appreciation of vi 's capabilities. Only time and effort can make a vi expert. But the efficiency and universality of vi make this effort pay off in the long run.

You may have decided you hate vi . So be it! But be aware that vi remains the standard UNIX text editor - the one editor you can count on being available on every UNIX system you'll use - so even if you prefer to use something else day-to-day, you'd be well advised to know the bare minimum vi material covered in this tutorial.

Vi has 3 modes:

Notations:

The "yank buffer" is filled by EVERY delete command, or explicitely by Y and yy .

With XML syntax recognition turned on, you can find the matching XML tag by placing the cursor on the XML tag (but within the < and >) and then pressing the % key. Note, however that you should not place the cursor on the < or > since vim will simply match the < or > . Visit http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=39 For installation instructions enter:

vim somefile.txt
:help add-local-help
rpm -qa | grep -i vim
rpm -ql vim-minimal | less
rpm -ql vim-common | less
ls /usr/share/vim/vim61/macros/matchit.*
mkdir -p ~/.vim/plugin
cp /usr/share/vim/vim61/macros/matchit.vim ~/.vim/plugin/
mkdir ~/.vim/doc
cp /usr/share/vim/vim61/macros/matchit.txt ~/.vim/doc/
vim some-xml-file.xml  # And test out the % key to match the tags
      

For xmledit.vim download the tar ball from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=301 and unpack this into ~/.vim for Unix and into $VIM/vimfiles folder for MS DOS or MS Windows.

	  cd ~/.vim
	  tar xvf xmledit.tar.gz
	  ln ftplugin/*.xml ~/.vim/plugin
	  vim some-xml-file.xml # And test out the autocreation of tags in insert mode
      

This is from Ashley - gVim and Docbook . One can write DocBook documents at an incredably faster rate if one maps element entry to key bindings. A directory called xml was created in the ftplugins directory of the gVim installation. Into this was placed a vim file that contained macros to map key combinations to element insertions. Comma preceeds each mapping, this is convenient because if the user types comma followed by space, nothing happens, but if the user types comma followed by one of the mapped key combinations an element is inserted. Most of the mappings are intuitive, for example, ulink is mapped onto ,-u-l. The mappings are very easy to customise and the improvement in document creation speed is amazing.

To check for well-formedness of your XML document just do

:!xmllint --valid --noout %  
      

And the --dtdvalid dtd allows validation of the document(s) against a given DTD.

How do I tell vim about these abbreviations? I put all of them (and a command to set some of vim's variables) in a file, which I call .vimhtmlrc and which resides in my home directory, and invoke

vim -u ~/.vimhtmlrc index.html

where index.html is the HTML file I want to edit. This is what my .vimhtmlrc file looks like:

ab aH <a href=?http://?><!? { ?>^M
Comments here^M^D</a> <!? } ?>
	  
ab aM <a href=?mailto:?>^M Comments
here^M^D </a>
	  
ab bO <body bgcolor=#e0e0e0
text=#000000><!? { ?>^M </body> <!? } ?>
	  
ab bR <br>
	  
ab cE <center bgcolor=#e0e0e0
text=#000000><!? { ?>^M </center> <!? } ?>
	  
ab cM <!? ^M ?>
	  
ab cO <code> <!? { ?>^M </code> <!? } ?>
	  
ab dL <dl><!? { ?>^M</dl><!? } ?>
	  
ab dT <dt>
	  
ab fO <font color=#000000>^M </font>
	  
ab h1 <h1><!? { ?>^M Heading size
1^M^D </h1> <!? } ?>
	  
ab h2 <h2><!? { ?>^M Heading size
2^M^D </h2><!? } ?>
	  
ab h3 <h3><!? { ?>^M Heading size
3^M^D </h3> <!? } ?>
	  
ab hD <head> <!? { ?>^M </head> <!? } ?>
	  
ab hR <hr>
	  
ab hT <html> <!? { ?>^M </html> <!? } ?>
	  
ab iM <img src=??>
	  
ab lI <li> <!? { ?>^M </li> <!? } ?>
	  
ab oL <ol> <!? { ?>^M </ol> <!? } ?>
	  
ab pR <pre> <!? { ?>^M </pre> <!? } ?>
	  
ab tD <td> <!? { ?>^M </td> <!? } ?>
	  
ab tL  <title>^M Title here^M^D </title>
	  
ab tS <table bgcolor=?#d0d0d0?> <!? {
?>^M </table> <!? } ?>
	  
ab tT <tt> </tt>
	  
ab uL <ul> <!? { ?>^M </ul> <!? } ?>
	  
ab xB  <b> </b>
	  
ab xI  <i> </i>
	  
ab xP <p> <!? { ?>^M </p> <!? } ?>
se ai aw sw=4 ts=4 wm=10 showmode
showmatch ruler magic
	  
		

When the ab commands are put in a file, to be read in by vim at startup, then the leading :is not needed. The last line is a command to set some of vim 's variables. Here is what they mean:

se        set: tells vim to activate the options that follow autoindent: begin the next
ai        line in the same column as this one (and not from column 1)
aw        autowrite: automatically write file to disk when it changes on a TAB key, move cursor 4
ts=4      characters (and not the normal 8); this is my personal preference
sw=4      number of spaces to use for indentation chars from right margin where
wm=10     line wrapping starts (useful if one is writing running text and not programs)
		  message on status line to show
showmode  current mode (for the novice, actually) briefly jump to matching 
		  opening '(' or '{' or '[' as
showmatch soon as a closing ')' or '}' or ']' is typed; beep if no match
ruler     show cursor line and column in status line some characters, such as '.'
magic     and '*', have special meanings in search and replace patterns.

Typing help in a vim window shows the explanations for these options and many more besides.

'WYSIWYG' has two parts to it. To begin with is the fact that Netscape under Unix (and Linux) can be controlled remotely.

That is, you may control the behavior of an already running Netscape through commands of the form

netscape -remote -noraise 'openFile(/home/mlaha/html/index.html)'

(If no Netscape is running, the command just exits with an error message.) This command causes the Netscape browser window to attempt to open the file /home/mlaha/html/index.html. For more on remote controlling Netscape, see "http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/x-remote.html" .

And then, there is atchange . Jeffrey Copeland and Jeffrey Haemer ( "http://alumni.caltech.edu/~copeland/work/edit-web.html" , "ftp://ftp.ncifcrf.gov/pub/delila/atchange" and "http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/atchange.html" ) describe a little shell script, called atchange, that waits in the background for a named file to change and then invokes a specified command. Thus,

atchange index.html 'netscape -noraise -remote 'openFile(/home/mlaha/html/index.html)'' &

would cause atchange to run in the background, watching the file index.html and, as soon as it changed, ask Netscape to display it afresh. If you were editing index.html with vi, then, when you saved it (with :w, say), atchange would spring into action and Netscape would update its display.

If you wish to edit another HTML file, you have to quit vim, kill the current invocation of atchange, then start it again with the name of the new file in place of index.html and begin editing that file with vim.

As you may have guessed, atchange can be used in other instances, too. You can make a handy 'WYSIWYG' LaTeX editor by having atchange monitor your LaTeX source and, when it changed, run the necessary programs to convert it to Postscript. The 'WYSIWYG' capability is provided in this case by invoking Ghostview with the monitoring option (-watch) that causes it to redisplay its current Postscript file whenever that file changes. Thus, every time you saved your LaTeX source file in the editor, the Postscript output with the latest changes would be automatically displayed in the Ghostscript window.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
# by Jeff Haemer
#       and a tip o' the hat to Tom Schneider
#       who wrote the original version as a shell script
# version = 2.07 of atchange 1999 Dec 30
# 1999 Dec 18:  Added shell call to /bin/csh so that
# atchange works under Linux.
# 1999 Feb 5: By setting the PERLCSH variable, the new shell can tell
#             it has been called by atchange.
# The test inside the .cshrc is:
#if ( (! $?PERLCSH ) && $?prompt) then 
#   stty erase '^H'
#   set prompt = "`uname -n` \!% "
#endif
# This is necessary under Sun Solaris 2.6 because otherwise the
# call to stty gives an error message now.
# previous change: 1997 Jan 9
# delay time is 0.25 seconds
#  For current version and other information about this program, see:
#  http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/atchange.html
#  Tom Schneider
#  National Cancer Institute
#  Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
#  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
#  toms@ncifcrf.gov
#  http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/
# 1999 Dec 30:  James Haefner (jhaefner@biology.usu.edu)
# has found that some changes are needed to make atchange
# work under Linux.  See the web site for details.
# This code will be revised when a good solution is found.
$0 =~ s(.*/)();                 # basename
$usage = "usage: $0 filename cmd | $0 command_file";
@ARGV || die $usage;            # check for proper invocation
# This allows the .cshrc to know that atchange has called it:
$ENV{'PERLCSH'} = "TRUE";
# Haefner Suggestion 1999 Dec 18:
##if default SHELL is sh or csh or tcsh use the following line
###$shell = $ENV{"SHELL"} ? $ENV{"SHELL"} : "/bin/sh";
##if default SHELL is bash (eg, Linux) use the following line
# 1999 Dec 28 - this is not a good idea - untestable by me
# $shell = "/bin/csh";
$shell = $ENV{"SHELL"} ? $ENV{"SHELL"} : "/bin/sh";
open(SHELL, "|$shell") || die "Can't pipe to $shell: $!";
select(SHELL); $| = 1;
if (@ARGV > 1) {                # it's a file and a command
        $file = shift;                          # peel off the filename
        $cmd{$file} = join(" ", @ARGV) . "\n";  #       and the command
        $old{$file} = (stat($file))[9]; # mod time.
} else {                        # it's a program
        open(PGM, shift) || die "Can't open $_: $!";
        $/ = "";                        # paragraph mode
        while(<PGM>) {                  # first read the program
                s/#.*\n/\n/g;
                ($file, $cmd) = /(\S*)\s+([^\000]+)/;
                $cmd{$file} = $cmd;
                unless ($file) { print $cmd{$file}; next; }
                if ($file && ! $cmd{$file}) { warn "odd line"; next; };
                $old{$file} = (stat($file))[9]; # mod time.
        }
}
while(1) {
        # sleep 1;              # wait a second, then
        select(undef, undef, undef, 0.25); # wait a quarter second, then
        foreach (keys %cmd) {   #       rip through the whole list
                atchange($_);
        }
}
close(SHELL);
sub atchange {          # if $file has changed, do $cmd{$file}
        my($file) = @_;
        my($new);
        $new = (stat($file))[9];
        return 0 if ($old{$file} == $new);
        while (1) {                     # wait until it stops changing
                $old{$file} = $new;
                sleep 1;
                $new = (stat($file))[9];
                if ($old{$file} == $new) {
                        print $cmd{$file};
                        return 1;
                }
        }
}

While editing HTML files with Vim, it is possible to automatically check syntax errors and beautify the code with program like Tidy

(Visit Raggett Tidy , Tidy Project and Beatifier HOWTO ).

Inside Vim (gvim), click on menu Tools->'Set Compiler'->'Tidy' and give command ":make". The :make command will run the tidy and show all errors if any. You can also edit the setting file tidy.vim and customize:

	ls /usr/share/vim/vim61/compiler
	cd /usr/share/vim/vim61/compiler
	cp tidy.vim  tidy.vim.backup
	man tidy 		 # And the manual page of tidy and see options..
	tidy -h | less   # See help about using tidy
	vi tidy.vim
		

See also related HTML validators section (HTML Beautifier section) in Beatifier HOWTO

PDF file can be generated from postscript file using either acrobat distill or Ghostscript . And postscript file is generated from DVI which in turn is generated from LaTex file. You can download distill software from "http://www.adobe.com" . Given below is a sample session:

bash$ man sgml2latex
bash$ sgml2latex filename.sgml
bash$ man dvips
bash$ dvips -o filename.ps filename.dvi
bash$ distill filename.ps
bash$ man ghostscript
bash$ man ps2pdf
bash$ ps2pdf input.ps output.pdf
bash$ acroread output.pdf &

Or you can use Ghostscript command ps2pdf . ps2pdf is a work-alike for nearly all the functionality of Adobe's Acrobat Distiller product: it converts PostScript files to Portable Document Format (PDF) files. ps2pdf is implemented as a very small command script (batch file) that invokes Ghostscript, selecting a special "output device" called pdfwrite . In order to use ps2pdf, the pdfwrite device must be included in the makefile when Ghostscript was compiled; see the documentation on building Ghostscript for details.

This document is written in linuxdoc SGML format. The Docbook SGML format supercedes the linuxdoc format and has lot more features than linuxdoc. The linuxdoc is very simple and is easy to use. To convert linuxdoc SGML file to Docbook SGML use the program ld2db.sh and some perl scripts. The ld2db output is not 100% clean and you need to use the clean_ld2db.pl perl script. You may need to manually correct few lines in the document.

The ld2db.sh is not 100% clean, you will get lots of errors when you run

	bash$ ld2db.sh file-linuxdoc.sgml db.sgml
	bash$ cleanup.pl db.sgml > db_clean.sgml
	bash$ gvim db_clean.sgml 
	bash$ docbook2html db.sgml

And you may have to manually edit some of the minor errors after running the perl script. For e.g. you may need to put closing tag < /Para> for each < Listitem>

You can convert the SGML howto document to Microsoft Windows Help file, first convert the sgml to html using:

	bash$ sgml2html xxxxhowto.sgml     (to generate html file)
	bash$ sgml2html -split 0   xxxxhowto.sgml (to generate a single page html file)

Then use the tool HtmlToHlp . You can also use sgml2rtf and then use the RTF files for generating winhelp files.

In order to view the document in dvi format, use the xdvi program. The xdvi program is located in tetex-xdvi*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel | Applications | Publishing | TeX menu buttons. To read dvi document give the command -

          xdvi -geometry 80x90 howto.dvi man xdvi 
        

And resize the window with mouse. To navigate use Arrow keys, Page Up, Page Down keys, also you can use 'f', 'd', 'u', 'c', 'l', 'r', 'p', 'n' letter keys to move up, down, center, next page, previous page etc. To turn off expert menu press 'x'.

You can read postscript file using the program 'gv' (ghostview) or 'ghostscript'. The ghostscript program is in ghostscript*.rpm package and gv program is in gv*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel | Applications | Graphics menu buttons. The gv program is much more user friendly than ghostscript. Also ghostscript and gv are available on other platforms like OS/2, Windows 95 and NT, you view this document even on those platforms.

To read postscript document give the command -

          gv howto.ps ghostscript howto.ps 
        

You can read HTML format document using Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet explorer, Redhat Baron Web browser or any of the 10 other web browsers.

You can read the latex, LyX output using LyX a X-Windows front end to latex.