Use Vim like an IDE

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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, greping, syntax highlighting, indentation, completion, "quickfix"ing, etc).

Vim Plugins

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.

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

Project/Filetree Browsing

NERDTree is a tree explorer plugin for navigating the filesystem.
vtreeexplorer is a tree based file explorer.
project.tar.gz gives you a "project" view of files, rather than a straight file system view

Buffer/File Browsing

bufexplorer lets you navigate through open buffers
minibufexpl which will allow for tabs of all your files (works really well).
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.

Code Browsing

taglist gives you an outline of the source you're viewing
Tagbar similar to taglist but can order tags by scope
indexer.tar.gz generates tags for all files in project automatically and keeps tags up-to-date. Using ctags. Can work as add-on for project.tar.gz, but also can work independently.

See also Browsing programs with tags and Cscope.

Writing Code

snipMate provides code snippets (like templates for writing common code idioms).
snippetsEmu is an alternative to snipMate.
AutoComplPop gives you code completion as you type.

Vim Functionality

matchit improves % matching
bufkill allows you to delete a buffer without actually closing the window.
gundo visualizes your undo tree.
surround makes it easier to delete/change/add parentheses/quotes/XML-tags/much more.

IDE integration

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

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

Debugging

There are several projects to add debugging functionality to vim

Clewn implements full gdb support in the vim editor: breakpoints, watch variables, gdb command completion, assembly windows, etc.
vim-debug, which creates an integrated debugging environment in VIM.
gdbvim plugin: Watch in vim what you debug in gdb. And more.

Refactoring

Comments

For when you're stuck with Visual Studio: see ViEmu at http://www.ngedit.com/viemu.html

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 interface:

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 .