myVIM

My configuration for VIM CLI editor.

content

directory setup
vimrc configuration file setup
adding plugins and the maokai colorstheme to Vim
what to expect
useful links

directory setup

First you need to have the following directory structure in your home:

~.vim/
 ├── autoload/
 ├── backup/
 ├── colors/
 └── plugged/

To do this, type the command below:

mkdir -p ~/.vim ~/.vim/autoload ~/.vim/backup ~/.vim/colors ~/.vim/plugged

vimrc configuration file setup

Configuring your .vimrc file lets you use the full power of Vim. It's a configuartion file that allow to customize the Vim Editor with commands and plugins.
The vimrc file must be present in your ~ (home) directory to be automatically loaded by Vim.

If not yet done, clone this repo in your home folder using the command below:

git clone git@github.com:Luca-Dalmasso/myVIM.git ~ && cd myVIM

Copy the .vimrc file in your ~ (home) directory:

cp -f .vimrc ~

adding plugins and the maokai colorstheme to Vim

The Vim plugins are used to enhance the Vim Editor functionalities.
To easily add plugins into Vim, the vim-plug plugin manager is used.
To install the vim-plug plugin, run this command:

curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

In the included .vimrc there are already 2 plugins included:

Asynchronous Lint Engine (ALE).
NERDTree

If you want too check where are the plugins included in the .vimrc you should be able to find the following lines inside it:

" PLUGINS ---------------------------------------------------------------- {{{

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')


  Plug 'dense-analysis/ale'

  Plug 'preservim/nerdtree'


call plug#end()

" }}}

You can add other plugins by adding the 'Plug <plug_name>' in between the two call plug# lines like above.

Plugins are not yet ready to be used, the must be downloaded and installed by the plugin manager.

To do so, open vim and type :PlugInstall.

You can easily add color schemes to Vim to change the default colors. Do a search for Vim color schemes and you will find many, many choices.

Installing a color scheme is a simple as adding a <colorscheme>.vim file to the ~/.vim/colors/ directory and the use the wanted colorscheme by adding it in the .vimrc file with the command colorscheme <colorscheme>. The colorscheme declared in the .vimrc file is the molokai and in order to be used it must be donwloaded and installed with the commands below:

cd ~/.vim/colors

curl -o molokai.vim https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tomasr/molokai/master/colors/molokai.vim

what to expect

This is how Vim looks like without this configuration: This is how Vim looks like with using this configuration:

Note:
The directory tree showed on the left is not present by default, it can be opened/closed by pressing the TAB key. This feature is not present by default on the Vim editor, it has included by the NERDTree plugins.

Extended documentation of the two plugins included can be found in the links below:

https://github.com/dense-analysis/ale


https://github.com/preservim/nerdtree

useful resources

Vim cheatsheet

https://vimsheet.com

Vim webpage

https://www.vim.org

References

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/vimrc-configuration-guide-customize-your-vim-editor/