Comfortable PHP Editing With VIM -9-

First released Tue Jan 29 2013

Comfortable PHP Editing With VIM -9-

After telling you about my completely reworked VIM setup and the awesome VIM plugins I'm using in it, this blog post deals to share with some snippets and settings I'm using to make all that stuff work round.

Leader Key

VIM already provides you with a ton of pre-defined shortcuts on various keys and in various combinations with <shift> and <ctrl>. Therefore, the so called Leader Key was introduced, allowing you to choose one base key to deal as the starting point for all your custom shortcuts. Defining the leader is easy using:

let mapleader = ","
let maplocalleader = ","

You can then access this key through <leader> and use it in keyboard combinations. Many plugins also try to register sensible defaults here, without inteferring with others.

Incrememntal Search

Using the incremental search setting, VIM starts running through your text document and showing you search results, while you still type your search. This helps a) to find stuff earlier and b) return early, if the desired result cannot be found. Incsearch is set by:

set incsearch
set nohlsearch

The latter option disables the annoying highlighting of search results after you finished searching.

Wild Menu

When auto-completing file names in command mode (like when doing :edit, :split or :vsplit), the wild menu offers you more comfort and especially more context. Enable it by:

set wildmenu
set wildmode=list:longest

The latter setting defines the style of the menu. A matter of taste.

Cursor Line

The place you are currently editing in insert mode is typically only marked by the cursor. Using the cursor line, you get a more appealing visual identifier:

autocmd InsertLeave * set nocursorline
autocmd InsertEnter * set cursorline

The autocommands deal for enabling/disabling the line when you enter/leave insert mode.

Restore Last Position

One feature which I had ages ago already (I suspect by either some plugin or by a distro based setting), but which suddenly vanished, was to restore the cursor position in a file I recently edited, when I re-open it again. Thanks to Benjamin, I now have that again through:

au BufReadPost * if line("'\"") > 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$") | exe "normal! g`\"" | endif

Invisible Chars

Making invisible chars (e.g. tabs) visible can sometimes help while debugging. This little snippet allows you to switch that on using <leader><L>:

nnoremap <leader>L :set list!<CR>
set listchars=tab:▸\ ,eol:¬

Thanks to a VIM cast for that.

Save as Root

How often do you forget a sudo in front of your vim command when editing a system config file? Using the following snippet allows you to write your changes anyway, without exiting your VIM session:

cnoremap w!! w !sudo tee % >/dev/null

Thanks to Jakob for this snippet.

Moving through CamelCase

If you write CamelCase code, its often useful to navigate through the dedicated parts using <ctrl><left> and <ctrl><right>:

nnoremap <silent><C-Left>  :<C-u>cal search('\<\<Bar>\U\@<=\u\<Bar>\u\ze\%(\U\&\>\@!\)\<Bar>\%^','bW')<CR>
nnoremap <silent><C-Right> :<C-u>cal search('\<\<Bar>\U\@<=\u\<Bar>\u\ze\%(\U\&\>\@!\)\<Bar>\%$','W')<CR>
inoremap <silent><C-Left>  <C-o>:cal search('\<\<Bar>\U\@<=\u\<Bar>\u\ze\%(\U\&\>\@!\)\<Bar>\%^','bW')<CR>
inoremap <silent><C-Right> <C-o>:cal search('\<\<Bar>\U\@<=\u\<Bar>\u\ze\%(\U\&\>\@!\)\<Bar>\%$','W')<CR>

Paste Toggle

Using :setpaste you can switch off all automatic formatting (e.g. indentation) in VIM. This is useful, if you want to paste from external sources through your terminal. However, using the following config, it becomes even more convenient:

set pastetoggle=<ins>
nnoremap <silent> <ins> :setlocal paste!<CR>i
autocmd InsertLeave <buffer> se nopaste

The <ins> (insert) key becomes the paste toggle, meaning that, in insert mode, it switches between paste/nopaste. In normal mode, pressing insert will set you into insert mode and set paste. Furthermore, when you leave insert mode with paste it will be switched off, so that you don't forget it.

Endless Undo

In times of distributed version control, undo functionality might become less and less important. However, it still gives you some comfort, especially if VIM remembers your undo history between sessions:

set undodir=~/.vim/undodir
set undofile
set undolevels=1000
set undoreload=10000

This sets vim to store undo information in files below ~/.vim/undodir. It will keep up to 1000 (yes, feels almost endless) actions and up to 10000 lines of buffers that get overwritten externally.

Edit Files Relative

Another goodie found in Benjamins config: When editing a file, it occurs quite often to me, that I need to edit one in the same directory (or one level above). I tent to write stuff like :vs %:h which is

vertical split (:vs)
current file name (%)
strip last path element (:h)

This works, but is a) hard to type and b) does not give you auto-completion for subsequent path elements (the files). The following shortcut simply expands the desired base path from typing %%:

cnoremap %% <C-R>=expand('%:h').'/'<cr>

I would love to have %%% expand to %:h:h (one more path level removed), but we did not find a solution for that, yet. Anyone maybe has an idea?

Comments

First of all thanks for sharing your config and plugins in this and the previous posts.
To get %%% work as described this should work:
cnoremap %%% <C-R>=fnamemodify(fnamemodify(expand('%'), ":h"), ":h")<cr>

lucash at 2013-01-30

Hi lucash,
well, that works. However, I need to wait quite a bit now after using just %%. I expect VIM now waits if I will type another % and only expand the first 2 afterwards.
Maybe there is a solution without that hassle?
Cheers, Toby

Toby at 2013-01-30