[xubuntu-users] Vim in Xubuntu

[Dotan Cohen]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 2:49 AM, 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
>

What do you mean by softwrap? Do you mean that the text would overflow
the right side of the screen will be displayed on a new line, but that
the application should not enter a newline character? If so, then you
don't want to set textwidth but rather let the terminal width decide
where to break. You should read this:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Word_wrap_without_line_breaks

I happen to prefer VIM in the terminal because GVIM has some
nonstandard behaviour (such as Ctrl-Q instead of Ctrl-V to enter
visual block mode). This is to be compatible with MS Windows
shortcuts. Also, the *buntus don't come with the full VIM installed by
default so you will want to install vim-full or whatever it is called
and remove vim-tiny.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com