November 16th, 2010My vim settings
From time to time, I find some settings for vi on remote systems that really kind of freak me out. The one I found recently was ‘incsearch’ so I decided to use this opportunity to note down the settings I use on a daily basis. Hope you find some of these useful.
syntax on
set hlsearch
set incsearch
set ruler
set showmatch
syntax on is pretty obvious. If you’re writing code, it’s pretty smart about highlighting the code so it’s easier to read. It can be odd at first but I find it really useful and after a while, it becomes second nature.
set hlsearch highlights your search terms so they’re easy to see. I like this option a lot. not everyone does.
set incsearch searches as you type. It’s new to me so I’m still getting used to it but I think I can already see some uses for it.
set ruler shows you where your cursor is at all times. I like this option a lot if only to tell me what line number I’m on. set number will also do this but I also find it irritating because it also interferes with my copy/paste habits.
set showmatch is really useful if you’re a coder. If you’ve got somewhat complicated conditional statements or loops, this feature will show you where brackets match so you can find missing brackets and close the proper blocks.
Hope these help. I’ll update these as I find more.