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This wiki is about the editor Vim. We aim to exchange tips and tricks with other Vim users. Please help by improving or adding comments to any tip.

If you are new to Vim, we have plenty of tips that will help you get started.

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Featured tip for July view archive

Syntax highlighting helps show the structure of a program, and usually all you need is :syntax on – the rest is automatic.

However, what if you have some C code in a text file, or some SQL code in a C file? With a little work, you can apply different syntax highlighting rules to different regions of a file, so your C code looks like C, your text looks like text, and your SQL code looks like SQL.

Our featured tip has the details. Use it to create syntax regions in plaintext, tweak existing syntax rules, or even as a guide when developing a new syntax plugin!

Did you know? view archive

• Vim Recipes is a new and free cookbook in PDF and HTML.
• An environment variable can be displayed, for example :echo $PATH.
• The 'opfunc' option can be used to define your own operator.
• A temporary change to the 'grepprg' option allows git grep in Vim.
• :pedit myfile opens a file in the preview window; useful for pydoc.
• Use :wa to save all modified files (no save if no change).
• Use :e .. to list files in the parent directory.
• Use :set showcmd to show the size of the visually-selected area.
• Press Ctrl-w then o to show only the current window (close others).
• Windows users should use the GnuWin32 diff package.
• You can search only unfolded text with :set fdo-=search.

From Vim Help view archive

• Vim's clever tricks are in chapter 12. :help usr_12.txt
• The 'shiftround' option keeps indentation at multiples of 'shiftwidth'. :help 'shiftround'
• The 'smartindent' option performs smart autoindenting when starting a new line. :help 'smartindent'

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