Nikolai Weibull wrote:
Perhaps a better way is to leave 'hlsearch' off and provide a binding that toggles it on and off. That way you don't get the "distracting" highlighting until you actually request it.
OK but I imagine most people would like hlsearch on while they are searching (I certainly do). I am trying to make a slightly different point: 1. Bram has asked for ideas on how to popularise Vim. 2. I think better default behaviour would be best. IMHO it is quite idiotic that Vim has the really great feature of globally highlighting searches, but the user has to learn how to map keys to make it work in a sensible way. I suppose there are people who don't mind the distracting highlights once they've finished looking at them, but I'm pretty confident that most people here have a mapping to deal with the situation. All of what I am saying it totally irrelevant if there is no desire to popularise Vim. John
