Vim reasonable defaults for all users.

Question

now the vim package keeps a less-than-minimal set of default settings. So keeping the old default as starting point I made what I think is a reasonable default:
" Use Vim settings, rather then Vi settings (much better!).
" This must be first, because it changes other options as a side effect.
set nocompatible
" allow backspacing over everything in insert mode
set backspace=indent,eol,start
set history=50 " keep 50 lines of command line history
set ruler " show the cursor position all the time
set showcmd " display incomplete commands
set incsearch " do incremental searching
set listchars=tab:˛\ ,trail:┈ " show trail spaces and tabs
set list
set wildmode=list:longest,full " use the new menus
set wildmenu
set background=dark " who uses white terminals anyway?
"statusline: filename, filetype, mod, rw, help, preview,
set statusline=%t\ %y\ %m%r%h%w
"statusline: separation between lef and right aligned items
set statusline+=%=
"statusline: lines number, column number, percent
set statusline+=[L:\ %l/%L]\ [C:\ %v]\ [%p%%]
set laststatus=2 " always show status line
set highlight+=sn
" Don't use Ex mode, use Q for formatting
map Q gq
" Use space and backspace to scroll the document
map <space> <c-d>
map <bs> <c-u>
" Disable f1, if you need help use `:help'
map <f1> <nop>
map ; :
" CTRL-U in insert mode deletes a lot. Use CTRL-G u to first break undo,
" so that you can undo CTRL-U after inserting a line break.
inoremap <C-U> <C-G>u<C-U>
" In many terminal emulators the mouse works just fine, thus enable it.
if has('mouse')
set mouse=a
endif
" Switch syntax highlighting on, when the terminal has colors
" Also switch on highlighting the last used search pattern.
if &t_Co > 2 || has("gui_running")
syntax on
set hlsearch
endif
" Only do this part when compiled with support for autocommands.
if has("autocmd")
" Enable file type detection.
" Use the default filetype settings, so that mail gets 'tw' set to 72,
" 'cindent' is on in C files, etc.
" Also load indent files, to automatically do language-dependent indenting.
filetype plugin indent on
" Put these in an autocmd group, so that we can delete them easily.
augroup vimrcEx
au!
" For all text files set 'textwidth' to 78 characters.
autocmd FileType text setlocal textwidth=78
" When editing a file, always jump to the last known cursor position.
" Don't do it when the position is invalid or when inside an event handler
" (happens when dropping a file on gvim).
" Also don't do it when the mark is in the first line, that is the default
" position when opening a file.
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if line("'\"") > 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$") |
\ exe "normal! g`\"" |
\ endif
augroup END
else
set autoindent " always set autoindenting on
endif " has("autocmd")
" Convenient command to see the difference between the current buffer and the
" file it was loaded from, thus the changes you made.
" Only define it when not defined already.
if !exists(":DiffOrig")
command DiffOrig vert new | set bt=nofile | r # | 0d_ | diffthis
\ | wincmd p | diffthis
endif
I put it here hoping it helps you or yours users' vim experience. Please leave any comment.
Last edited by ezzetabi (2009-09-30 13:53:47)

Answer 1

Hi, I think this is not a bad idea. I do like using listchars to show tabs and trailing spaces like that, but I think that using commoly used characters like _ is confusing. If you go into vim and use the :digraph command you can see lots of special characters which are useful IMO for listchars. I use set listchars=tab:→,trail:¸, but I don't know if they'd be best for everyone. But I think it is clearer than using normal keyboard characters.