Vim is a popular UNIX command line text editor with an interface that is based not on menus or icons but on commands given in a text user interface.

leopard-vim-syntax-highlighting

Unfortunately the vim that ships with Mac OS X 10.5.* (Leopard) doesn’t have an optimized configuration file to allow for syntax highlighting, auto indentation, etc.

To fix this, open a new Terminal window and enter these commands to open vim’s configuration file:

cd /usr/share/vim
 
sudo vim vimrc

Press the ‘i‘ key to switch vim to Insertion Mode, then enter these lines below the ‘set backspace=2‘ line:

set ai                  " auto indenting
set history=100         " keep 100 lines of history
set ruler               " show the cursor position
syntax on               " syntax highlighting
set hlsearch            " highlight the last searched term
filetype plugin on      " use the file type plugins
 
" When editing a file, always jump to the last cursor position
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if ! exists("g:leave_my_cursor_position_alone") |
\ if line("'\"") > 0 && line ("'\"") <= line("$") |
\ exe "normal g'\"" |
\ endif |
\ endif

Press the Escape key to take vim out of Insertion Mode, then press ‘:‘ (colon) followed by ‘x‘ to save the file and exit. Enter this command again:

sudo vim vimrc

… and you’ll see that vim now automatically indents code, displays the cursor position, has syntax highlighting, etc.

Share this article: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Twitter
  • GatorPeeps
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • muti.co.za
  • DZone
  • del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Slashdot

Related posts:

  1. Enabling Terminal’s directory and file color highlighting in Mac OS X
  2. MySQL 5, PHP 5 and Apache2 configuration on OS X 10.5.* (Leopard)
  3. Enabling remote access to a MySQL Database Server
  4. Bash Script to split a single CSV file into multiple files with headers
  5. Reusing commands with different arguments on a Bash command line