Combined with GNU Screen I have a really powerful development platform.

Unfortunately, I had a consistency problem with copy/paste text between different Vim instances (running in different iTerm2 tabs, or in separate GNU Screen windows).

When running CLI locally it is not a big deal as Vim has support for yank/paste to/from system clipboard (via * and + registers). It is not an issue if you work with MacVim either, as it has full integration with system clipboard.

My problem is that most of the time, when developing, I am connecting to different machines via ssh. There are number of solutions: for eg X11 Forwarding, using xclips.

But I wanted a more simple approach that

• will require zero configuration on my part
• will work 100% of time, disregarding from which machine I am connecting, whether I connect as ssh -x host etc

Most obvious solution is to use temp file, where selection is going to be yanked into, and (presumably from another vim instance running on the very same host) is going to be pasted from.

This trick, as many others, has been already discussed on Vim.Wikia.
All I needed to add to my Vim Bundle‘s .vimrc:

"copy the current visual selection to ~/.vbuf
vmap y :w! ~/.vbuf
"copy the current line to the buffer file if no visual selection
nmap y :.w! ~/.vbuf
"paste the contents of the buffer file
nmap p :r ~/.vbuf

Now, when working in different windows of GNU Screen (I have at least two instances of Vim – one with current code, and another with Unit Test suite), to move text between those intances, I just need to

1. visually select code
2. type ,y
3. switch to another GNU Screen window
4. type ,p

This four steps take less than a couple of seconds, mind you

a) Persistent undo

Small but nevertheless very useful addition. Basically, your undo lists are dumped into undo files allowing you to undo/redo even if buffer is unloaded (or even if editor closed). Plus now you are able to undo even after buffer reload (this is separate feature actually).

To enable, add to your .vimrc:

set undofile
set undodir=/tmp

That will enable dumping undo lists into undofile, which will be located in /tmp folder.

b) Arbitrary columns

Main use for me is to highlight maximum line length. You could have similar functionality before, but now it is supported out of box:

" make sure that max lines are displayed
" (80 and 120 are from ZF Coding standards)
set colorcolumn=80,120

To update the color of the ruler use hl-ColorColumn. In our custom theme (based on wombat), I set color as:

hi ColorColumn guibg=#2d2d2d

c) Relative line numbers

Well, at first I though this kind of controversial feature, but once I tried to navigate inside document using it – I suppose I like this feature. In any case, not added to my .vimrc by default. I turn it manually:

:set rnu

and to get back to original line numbers:

:set nu

d) Conceal text

Well, this feature is mainly for syntax file writers, as it might make markup text more readable. I, honestly, haven’t enough incentive to dig into it any deeper, as I don’t really see how can I use it in my immediate work (I actually like to see all the markup).

Conclusion

Although 7.3 is a minor release, it is still the result of two-years of work, with a lot of issues fixed and several very cool additions.

Couple of notes on installation

On our 4C’s development server (running CentOS), I was able to compile 7.3 without any issues whatsoever.

While recently switching to Mac, I still program on my old Ubuntu box and updating the Vim installation didn’t work the first time I tried. I noticed that my Ubuntu installation needed xorg-dev and libgtk2.0-dev packages, once installed I was able to compile an complete the Vim’s installation.

Here is little script I use to compile and install Vim on CentOS (used it on Ubuntu as well):

#!/bin/bash
export CONF_OPT_GUI='--enable-gui=gtk2'
export CONF_OPT_PYTHON='--enable-pythoninterp'
export CONF_OPT_MULTIBYTE='--enable-multibyte'
export CONF_OPT_FEAT='--with-features=huge'
export CONF_OPT_COMPBY='--with-compiledby="yourname@here.com'

make distclean
./configure $CONF_OPT_FEAT $CONF_OPT_MULTIBYTE $CONF_OPT_PYTHON $CONF_OPT_COMPBY $CONF_OPT_GUI
make
make install

Save it into extracted vim73 directory (I prefer to use name “configure-my”), then simply source:

source configure-my

Hope that saves you some time and happy Viming!!

The good place to seek for fixes and workarounds is Vim Wikia, which not only shows you what to do, but also gives you a brief background on what is going on (if you are unaware).

I am generally happy with dos2unix utility to convert files, but sometimes it seems to be unable to fix the issue. In such situations I do a simple search/replace, right inside of Vim (in ex mode):

:%s/\r/\r/g

In my opinion it is real magic – it replaces carriage returns (CR) with line-feeds (LF), but the actual command reads: do a replacement of \r with \r, right?
Well, Vim is clever enough to look into file-type, and if it’s unix – it presumes that first \r can be either CR or LF, while second (replacement) is always LF

If it doesn’t work for you check your buffer’s file type:

:set ff?

I only recently moved to Vim, but start loving it for such small but extremely useful gems.

Should you have any questions/suggestions – hit me back on my tweeter.