Skip to content

How to Do 90% of What Plugins Do with Just Vim

Vim plugins can buy us a lot of functionality, but they also add a lot of burden in the form of dependency complexity. Origin vim has the ability to implement many features that plugins do, for example:

  • file jumping(FuzzyFinder, Ctrl+P)
  • tag jumping
  • auto complete
  • file browser
  • snippets

Finding Files

Vim Settings

1
2
3
4
5
" Search down into subfolders and provide tab-complete
set path+=**

" Display all matching files when tab-complete
set wildmenu

Usage

  • If the file is in current path or its subfolder, use :find file.name to open it
  • You can use * to make it fuzzy: :find file.*
  • If there are more than one matching iterms, they will appear above the command line

Tag Jumping

This feature base on the software universal-ctags.

Settings

1
command! MakeTags !ctags -R .
You can use :MakeTags command in vim to generate ctags, or run the following command manually: 
1
ctags -R .

Usage

  • Use C-] to jump to tag under cursor
  • Use g-C-] to show ambiguous tags
  • Use C-t or C-o to jump back

Auto Complete

Settings

None

Usage

  • Use C-x-C-n to complete in this file
  • Use C-x-C-f to complete filenames
  • Use C-x-C-] to complete in tags
  • Use C-n to complete anything specified by the complete option
  • Once the matching iterms appear, you can use C-n to jump to next one and C-p to previous

File Browser

Settings

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
let g:netrw_banner=0 " disable banner
let g:netrw_browse_split=4 " open in prior window
let g:netrw_altv=1 " open split to the right
let g:netrw_liststyle=3 " tree view
let g:netrw_winsize=25 " 25% of current window
let g:netrw_list_hide=netrw_gitignore#Hide() " ignore files in gitignore
let g:netrw_list_hide.=',\(^\|\s\s\)\zs\.\S\+' " hide some folder

Usage

  • Use :Ve or :edit to open a file brower from current window
  • Use <CR> to open in right window
  • Use v to vsplit
  • Use t to open in a new tab

Snippets

Settings

1
2
" Read an empty HTML template and move cursor to tile
nnoremap ,html :-1read $HOME/.vim/.skeleton.html<CR>3jwf>a

Usage

  • In normal mode, type ,html to insert a html template and jump to special position