[xubuntu-users] Vim in Xubuntu

[Kevin O'Gorman]

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 4:49 PM, James Freer <jessejazza3.uk at gmail.com> wrote:
> [using xubuntu 10.04... hopefully before the end of this month 12.04!]
>
> I'm just starting to use Vim but i want to set it up for editing text
> WORDS not programming text.
>
> But first things first; should i use Vim, Vim-gnome, Vim-GTK - with
> xubuntu i'd have thought vim-gtk. Looking at the dependencies it
> didn't seem to make a lot of difference as far as i could see. As i
> like minimal approach maybe i'd be better off using NVI,Vile or Elvis?
>
> What i want to achieve is to have a console editor that softwraps text
> as well as the likes of gedit or leafpad. The two commands i gather
> are the following
>
> :set textwidth=80
> :set formatoptions=t [stands for options characters]
>
> From what i can work out this command only worked for a file i'm
> typing not one i've originally typed in gedit and then open in Vim. I
> think there are some technicalities with .txt files which i'm not
> familiar with and would be grateful if someone could put me right.
> Perhaps i'd just be better to stay with gedit and use from the CLI
> when there.
>
> thanks
> james

Vim is a text editor, not a word processor.  You can sort of make it
work, but it will never be as good as a word processor if you want it
to be flexible about line breaks as you edit lines, be aware of
paragraphs and so on.

I have used vi and clones like vim since 1984, but only for writing
code, code documentation, and short notes.

For readable text, especially with proportional fonts, I use the
editors built into browsers for email, and libre- open- or star-
office for documents.

Maybe others have other ideas.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD