Sorry about that missing line break. There should be one right before the "function!", as:
" Insert boilerplate text at current cursor function! AddBoilerPlate() r ~/boilerplate.txt endfunction command! -nargs=0 BoilerPlate :call AddBoilerPlate() map <F8> <ESC>:BoilerPlate<CR> Daryl -----Original Message----- From: Daryl Lee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 1:50 PM To: 'Richard Querin' Cc: vim@vim.org Subject: RE: How do I implement boilerplate text? If you want manual control over when and where to insert the boilerplate, you can define a function and optionally connect it to a keystroke sequence: " Insert boilerplate text at current cursor function! AddBoilerPlate() r ~/boilerplate.txt endfunction command! -nargs=0 BoilerPlate :call AddBoilerPlate() map <F8> <ESC>:BoilerPlate<CR> This will put the boilerplate text where the cursor is. There may be (probably are--I'm fairly green at scripting) better ways to do this, but it's one way. Just stick that somewhere neatly in your vimrc and bang away. Daryl -----Original Message----- From: Tim Chase [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 1:34 PM To: Richard Querin Cc: vim@vim.org Subject: Re: How do I implement boilerplate text? > Anyway, one thing I'd like to be able to do is insert some boilerplate > text into a document - something like a standard signature. Is there > some way I can preload a buffer with this text when I run Vim? Can > this be done in the rc file? I'm sure there is a way (with Vim there > always seems to be) but I can't seem to find out how. In your vimrc, you can add a line something like au BufNewFile *.txt $r ~/template.txt where "*.txt" is the pattern to match. Thus, if you do: :e nonexistant.txt it will automatically read in the file "~/template.txt" at the bottom of the file ("$"). This can be modified for most templating needs. You can change the filespec to just "*" to have it apply to all new files. You can change the file that is read in. You can also position it elsewhere in the file by changing the "$" to any other address, such as reading at the beginning ("0"). When you're dealing with an empty/new file, this isn't such a big deal though ;) There are a number of bigger and more powerful templating scripts available, such as http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?script_id=988 http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?script_id=1160 which may be a bit like hunting mosquitoes with a bazooka, or might be just what you need. -tim