Robert Cussons wrote:
...snip
Alternately, you can /set/ different highlighting colors by using a
color scheme (see ":help :colorscheme"). Make sure that you use a
color scheme with a bright background and dark text. Or else, view
the file in the GUI, which uses black text on white background by
default, but requires a windowing system such as Windows, Macintosh
or X11 ("bare bones" Unix without X11 won't do). You can then print
with the same highlighting, but it will (at least temporarily)
display (mostly) dark text on a bright background on your terminal too.
Best regards,
Tony.
Thanks Tony, I am actually running KDE Linux and using gvim, is that
what you meant by viewing the file in the GUI, or did you mean the
opposite and that I would have to view it in the terminal window, all
the commands vim, vi and gvim, point to vim, which launches in a
separate window, so I'm not sure how to launch in a terminal window.
Many thanks,
Rob.
The GUI is gvim -- the "Graphical User Interface" for Vim. On Unix, but
not on Windows (I'm not sure about Mac), it is possible to use a single
executable with (at different times) either a graphical interface (when
invoked as gvim or as vim -g, and provided that it can establish a
connection with X11) or a text one (when invoked as vim without -g, or
IIUC when it cannot reach X11). The default colors (with no colorscheme)
for the GUI (gvim) are nonbold black on white, for console Vim (vim) it
is whatever was set in the shell console, typically light grey on black.
To launch console Vim in an xterm or konsole, invoke it as vim (not
gvim), or as vim -X if you don't even want to have it try to check for
X11 (a text-mode vim can, if compiled for it, use the X11 clipboard).
You can also launch it that way in a non-X text terminal such as
/dev/tty -- on Linux, or at least on the Linux flavours that I know,
there are 6 such "virtual consoles", /dev/tty1 to /dev/tty6, available
for logging in in text mode and accessed by hitting any key combo from
Ctrl-Alt-F1 for /dev/tty1, which is special in that its screen is not
cleared at the end of the bootup sequence, showing the "init" messages,
to Ctrl-Alt-F6 for /dev/tty6; and Ctrl-Alt-F7 brings you back to the
graphical X11 display, if X11 is started.
Best regards,
Tony.
