Tip 1119 Printable Monobook Previous Next created 2006 · complexity intermediate · author Matt Zyzik · version 6.0

I use Vim for all text editing, even software development. At one point I stopped using IDEs. One major reason is that Vim can do all the major things I need from IDEs (tabs, file trees, grepping, syntax highlighting, indentation, completion, "quickfixing", etc).

Vim Plugins [ edit | edit source ]

Still Vim needs plugins to do some IDE-like things that aren't built in. Here are some Vim scripts that make Vim more like an IDE.

The plugins listed below are all great; the one additional plugin that really makes vim feel like an IDE for me is ale -- the Asynchronous Lint Engine. It runs various tests in the background and highlights errors in your code with annotations in the side margin. Incredibly valuable.

Note: You can use pathogen to isolate your plugins and make it easier to experiment with new plugins.

NERDTree is a tree explorer plugin for navigating the filesystem.

vtreeexplorer is a tree based file explorer.

project gives you a "project" view of files, rather than a straight file system view

ide Tracks files status (open/edited/closed/read only) within a project with icons; automatically builds and updates syntax highlight rules based on the project files (C/C++/Java); avoids buffer duplication.

:help netrw for information about the explorer distributed with Vim. It does not display files in a tree by default, but can by using the g:netrw_liststyle option. It also offers useful file-sorting options (by date, size, name).

Luc Hermitte's local_vimrc and Markus " embear " Braun's local_vimrc manage projects as files in a same directory tree.

" Braun's local_vimrc manage projects as files in a same directory tree. Tim Pope's Projectionist #4989 provides granular project configuration using "projections".

bufexplorer lets you navigate through open buffers

minibufexpl Elegant buffer explorer; takes very little screen space.

lookupfile Lookup files using Vim7 ins-completion

Command-T plugin, inspired by the "Go to File" window bound to Command-T in TextMate

MRU access recently opened files.

ctrlp Fuzzy file, buffer, mru, tag, ... finder with regexp support. Written in vim language. Access all the functions with ctrl-p

FuzzyFinder same as previous.

Code Browsing [ edit | edit source ]

taglist gives you an outline of the source you're viewing

Tagbar similar to taglist but can order tags by scope. Recommend for programming languages with classes, e.g. C++, Java, Python.

Indexer generates tags for all files in project automatically and keeps tags up-to-date. Using ctags. Works well with project plugin or independently.

CCTree is a Call-Tree Explorer, Cscope based source-code browser, and code flow analyzer.

exUtility global search, symbol search, tag track...(Like IDE/Source Insight).

ShowMarks visually shows the location of marks.

lh-tags automatically updates the ctags database, and provides alternatives to `:tselect` to navigate code.

See also Browsing programs with tags and Cscope.

Writing Code [ edit | edit source ]

A plethora of code snippet/template plugins are available, many offering TextMate-like snippet features.

AutoComplPop gives you code completion as you type.

YouCompleteMe is another completion plugin.

CRefVim A C-reference manual especially designed for Vim.

See also Omni completion and Make Vim completion popup menu work just like in an IDE.

Vim Functionality [ edit | edit source ]

matchit improves % matching

bufkill allows you to delete a buffer without actually closing the window.

undotree or gundo visualizes your undo tree, see Using undo branches.

surround makes it easier to delete/change/add parentheses/quotes/XML-tags/much more.

vim-dispatch allows you to asynchronously run shell commands. When running a compiler, the quickfix window will be populated with any potential errors.

Build Tools Wrapper provides ways to compile programs (possibly in background, on several cores, ...), and to test and execute programs. It can also filter compilation outputs on the fly. When compiling projects under CMake care, BTW plugin permits to switch the compilation mode (a directory actually). The current compilation mode (and project name) will be displayed in the statusline of each buffer (the quickfix buffer as well) through airline plugin.

plugin permits to switch the compilation mode (a directory actually). The current compilation mode (and project name) will be displayed in the statusline of each buffer (the quickfix buffer as well) through airline plugin. (list to be completed)

IDE integration [ edit | edit source ]

You may want to use your IDE for some tasks like debugging, so some integration between Vim and the IDE can be helpful.

Integrate gvim with Visual Studio

Eclim brings Eclipse functionality to the Vim editor.

Source Control Integration [ edit | edit source ]

There are many Vim plugins for different source control management systems. Here are a few.

vcscommand.vim - CVS/SVN/SVK/git/hg/bzr integration plugin

fugitive - git integration

perforce - perforce integration

lawrencium - mercurial integration

gitv - gitk clone for vim

Splice - plugin for resolving conflicts during three-way merges

See also Category:VersionControl

There are several projects to add debugging functionality to vim

Bundled terminal debugger plugin (since vim 8.1, 2018-05-18)

Clewn implements full gdb support in the vim editor: breakpoints, watch variables, gdb command completion, assembly windows, etc.

pyClewn like clewn but written in python and also supports pdb.

vim-debug, which creates an integrated debugging environment in VIM.

gdbvim plugin: Watch in vim what you debug in gdb. And more.

vim-lldb: provides lldb debbuging integration.

vim-vebugger: debugger front-end for gdb, jdb, Mdbg, pdg, Rdebug

vdebug: Multi-language DBGP debugger client for Vim (PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, etc.)

vim-byebug-breakpoints: controls Ruby breakpoints for byebug (works with ruby >=2.0)

When using Visual Studio, see ViEmu.

Code navigation in vi offers much more than a standard IDE, because of the ability to execute the desired combination of commands. Generate an index much more rapidly than an IDE with a heavy GUI:

For example, one can take advantage of the tag stack:

For C++, follow the instructions: on using OmniCpp Define a custom .ctags file

--c++-kinds=+p --fields=+iaS --extra=+q --language-force=C++

From a console (the exclude options may vary) generate the tags file as follows:

ctags --exclude=.svn --exclude=target -R .

Preconfigured VIM as IDE [ edit | edit source ]

You can find preconfigure VIM as IDE environment created by Damian Ziobro on GitHub:

https://github.com/xmementoit/vim-ide

It contains preconfigured BASH script to install it on your Ubuntu (not tested on other OSes). In order to install vim-ide on Ubuntu, you need to do following steps:

back up your previous vimrc configuration

cp $HOME/.vimrc $HOME/.vimrc.bak

clone vim-ide repository to your HOME directory

cd $HOME && git clone https://github.com/xmementoit/vim-ide

install vim-ide in your system

cd vim-ide && ./installVim.sh

explore possibilities and plugins of vim-ide repository in $HOME/.vimrc and $HOME/.vim. Ex. open main.cpp file

vim /tmp/main.cpp