cga2000 wrote:
[...]
.. isn't there a way one could add the customization - once it's duly
tested - to a system-wide tree so other users of the system could
benefit by it? Some sort of $VIMRUNTIME/local so-to-speak..?
Yes, there is. It is called $VIM/vimfiles/. Check your 'runtimepath'
option by using
:set runtimepath?
The answer is a comma-separated list of (usually) five directories,
which are the heads of trees constructed identically. $VIMRUNTIME
contains all possible subdirectories; the others, with their
subdirectories, need only exist inasmuch as you have something to put in
them. Here are the most usual names (given in Vim notation):
$HOME/.vim/ (on Unix)
$HOME/vimfiles/ (on Windows)
full-fledged scripts specific to a single user
$VIM/vimfiles/ (on all platforms)
full-fledged scripts set up system-wide by an admin
$VIMRUNTIME (which is normally $VIM/vim70/ for Vim 7.0, similarly with a
different suffix for other versions)
anything that was installed with the Vim distribution, and NOTHING ELSE.
A version upgrade (e.g., from 7.0 to a future 7.1 or 8.0) will rebuild
this completely with a different name.
A patchlevel upgrade may silently overwrite anything in here.
$VIM/vimfiles/after/
system-wide scripts adding small tweaks to scripts of the same name and
subpath in any of the above
$HOME/.vim/after/ (on Unix)
$HOME/vimfiles/after (on Windows)
user-specific scripts adding small tweaks to scripts of the same name
and subpath in any of the above
[...]
sometimes I think Bram himself cannot know everything that's in it..
Maybe, but he knows quite a lot, and he built himsekf the tools to find
what he forgot or plain doesn't know (see below).
It is also the best-documented piece of
software that I've ever seen (hence the needle-and-haystack problem), it
has great tools for searching its own help (such as helptag completion
and the :helpgrep command) and if there is something you still can't
find in the help (usually it is there but you can't find it) there are
these mailing lists which I've found very useful too; nowadays I take my
part of answering questions but I am still learning, mostly from the
questions that other people are asking and to which I don't know the answer.
see
:help :help
:help {subject}
the above is not just any subject but the word "subject" itself, between
braces
:help CTRL-]
:help :helptags
and the "wild" options, some of which we spoke about in an earlier post
on this thread,
:help 'wildchar'
:help 'wildmenu'
:help 'wildmode'
:help 'wildoptions'
I think I need to schedule a sabbatical day once a month to work on
improving my vim skills. Jotted :helpgrep on a piece of paper.. sounds
promising. All the others you mention I already use.. though probably
not to their fullest extent.
Thanks,
cga
:-) Best wishes,
Tony.
