HN Explorer

Ask HN: What Vim Plugins do you use?

127 points by bitboxer ↗ HN
I have switched to vim a little more than a week ago and would love to see what plugins/extensions others are using.

What plugins do you use and what is your favorite plugin and why?

52 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] thread
mfukar
Very few, really. Here goes:

- Taglist : uses exuberant ctags to parse your code and present you with a nice source code browser. It's a lifesaver for large projects.

- surround : Add, change or delete surroundings (punctuation, quotes, tags, etc.) in pairs.

- lhCpp : a suite of C and C++ plugins

- SuperTab : all insert-mode completion done with Tab

- minibufexpl : if you're working with buffers a lot, it will make your life easier

Those are all, I think. Of course there's heaps of other functionality that I've added in my own .vimrc, does that count? :)

obiterdictum
Foc C++ development I'd add A.vim: switch (or split) quickly from header to its corresponding c/cpp file.
mcpherrinm
This is definitely my must-have vim addon for working in vim.

Being able to quickly split and have your header file open is incredibly useful, considering how common an action it is.

bitboxer
Btw here is my list:

* pathogen : install plugins in seperate directories

* NERD_tree : Tree navigation

* NERD_commenter: Comment/uncomment lines. File type agnostic

* Rename : Rename file in buffer

* Ack : Search using ack not grep

* Command-T : Fuzzy find files in path * Rails.vim : shortcuts to open models, controllers and other ruby on rails related stuff

* snipMate : Textmate like snipplet funktion

* surround : Add, change or delete surroundings

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
danielh
* NERD_tree : Tree navigation

* 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.

statictype
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.
bronson
Beware putting swapfile in /tmp. On many distributions, /tmp is cleared when the computer restarts. Lose power -> lose all your changes.
statictype
dbext - An excellent plugin to execute sql against a db server from within vim - works with almost every major db engine.

snipmate - textmate like snippets. Works very well.

NERD_tree: As others have mentioned.

Not really a plugin but, this is useful for automatically closing your '(' and '[' and quotes etc... http://concisionandconcinnity.blogspot.com/2009/07/vim-part-...

mhansen
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
Aegean
Fugitive. Cscope. taglist

I also have NERDTree but very seldomly use it.

tryke
I can't overstate how useful Cscope is for large C projects. With a couple keystrokes, you can do searches like:

- Where is this symbol defined? - Where is this function called? - Where is this variable referenced? Assigned?

It's the one plugin I use all day, every day.

antileet
I have my entire .vim directory on github. You can see my plugins folder here:

http://github.com/ninjagod/etc/tree/master/vim/plugin/

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 even aliased "vim" and "vi" to map to the remote editor. You can see my tiny workaround for this: http://github.com/ninjagod/etc/blob/master/zshrc#L31

I would recommend you read Peter Krumin's articles on various vim plugins, etc.

snprbob86
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?

antileet
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.

nuclear_eclipse
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.

http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/home/

dakrone
Why not use Eclim[1] instead, since it allows you to embed an actual vim editor into Eclipse if desired and get all of Vim's features?

[1]: http://eclim.org

vietor
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.

rquirk
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.

[0]: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=300

mreid
Here's mine: * project - configurable file lists * NERDTree - directory browsing * autocomplpop - autocomplete pop ups * markdown - syntax highlighter * pathogen - sane plugin management * Molokai - nice colour scheme
cosmok
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.
zokier
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.
khingebjerg
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.
Buzzzz
Anyone who has a good plugin for html/javascript? Tried a couple but noone seems to support the mix of html and javascript in the same file :(.

//Buzzz

rnicholson
Concur with the other recommended plugins here, but if you're doing any C or C++ reco a.vim
[dead] _ivan
BufExplorer imap <A-o> <Esc>o inoremap jj <Esc>
Apreche
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.

mgrouchy
I put my .vimrc and .vim directory on github: http://github.com/mgrouchy/vim

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.

edit edit: Fixed!

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
telemachos
Like a lot of people I have a fair amount of Vim-related stuff on Github. I'll put links at the end:

@ 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/

ronnier
I use a plugin to provide VIM emulation in Visual Studio. And that plugin itself doesn't allow plugins within it.

http://www.viemu.com/

kilowatt
If you do Python development, definitely check out my pyflakes-vim plugin that highlights errors on the fly: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2441

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.

Finally, VCSCommand.vim is pretty great for viewing SVN/Git/etc diffs, making commits, seeing annotated files, etc: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=90

pge
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.