path: root/chapter06/vim.xml

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<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
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<sect1 id="ch-system-vim" role="wrap">
  <?dbhtml filename="vim.html"?>

  <sect1info condition="script">
    <productname>vim</productname>
    <productnumber>&vim-version;</productnumber>
    <address>&vim-url;<otheraddr>&vim-lang-url;</otheraddr></address>
  </sect1info>

  <title>Vim-&vim-version;</title>

  <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim">
    <primary sortas="a-Vim">Vim</primary>
  </indexterm>

  <sect2 role="package">
    <title/>

    <para>The Vim package contains a powerful text editor.</para>

    <segmentedlist>
      <segtitle>&buildtime;</segtitle>
      <segtitle>&diskspace;</segtitle>

      <seglistitem>
        <seg>&vim-ch6-sbu;</seg>
        <seg>&vim-ch6-du;</seg>
      </seglistitem>
    </segmentedlist>

    <tip>
      <title>Alternatives to Vim</title>

      <para>If you prefer another editor&mdash;such as Emacs, Joe, or
      Nano&mdash;please refer to <ulink
      url="&blfs-root;view/svn/postlfs/editors.html"/> for suggested
      installation instructions.</para>
    </tip>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 role="installation">
    <title>Installation of Vim</title>

    <para>First, unpack both
    <filename>vim-&vim-version;.tar.bz2</filename> and (optionally)
    <filename>vim-&vim-version;-lang.tar.gz</filename> archives into the
    same directory.</para>

    <para>Apply a patch which fixes various issues already found and fixed by
    the upstream maintainers since the inital release of Vim-&vim-version;:
    </para>

<screen><userinput remap="pre">patch -Np1 -i ../&vim-fixes-patch;</userinput></screen>

    <para>This version of Vim installs translated man pages and places
    them into directories that will not be searched by Man-DB. Patch Vim
    so that it installs its man pages into searchable directories and
    ultimately allows Man-DB to transcode the page into the desired format
    at run-time:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="pre">patch -Np1 -i ../&vim-mandir-patch;</userinput></screen>

    <para>Change the default location of the
    <filename>vimrc</filename> configuration file to <filename
    class="directory">/etc</filename>:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="pre">echo '#define SYS_VIMRC_FILE "/etc/vimrc"' &gt;&gt; src/feature.h</userinput></screen>

    <para>Now prepare Vim for compilation:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="configure">./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-multibyte</userinput></screen>

    <variablelist>
      <title>The meaning of the configure options:</title>

      <varlistentry>
        <term><parameter>--enable-multibyte</parameter></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>This switch enables support for editing files in multibyte
          character encodings.  This is needed if using a locale with a
          multibyte character set. This switch is also helpful to be able
          to edit text files initially created in Linux distributions like
          Fedora Core that use UTF-8 as a default character set.</para>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

    </variablelist>

    <para>Compile the package:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="make">make</userinput></screen>

    <para>To test the results, issue:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="test">make test</userinput></screen>

    <para>However, this test suite outputs a lot of binary data to the screen,
    which can cause issues with the settings of the current terminal. This can
    be resolved by redirecting the output to a log file.</para>

    <para>Install the package:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="install">make install</userinput></screen>

    <para>Many users are used to using <command>vi</command> instead of
    <command>vim</command>. To allow execution of <command>vim</command>
    when users habitually enter <command>vi</command>, create a
    symlink for both the binary and the man page in the provided
    languages:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="install">ln -sv vim /usr/bin/vi
for L in  /usr/share/man/{,*/}man1/vim.1; do
    ln -sv vim.1 $(dirname $L)/vi.1
done</userinput></screen>

    <para>By default, Vim's documentation is installed in <filename
    class="directory">/usr/share/vim</filename>. The following symlink
    allows the documentation to be accessed via <filename
    class="directory">/usr/share/doc/vim-&vim-version;</filename>, making
    it consistent with the location of documentation for other packages:</para>

<screen><userinput remap="install">ln -sv ../&vim-docdir;/doc /usr/share/doc/vim-&vim-version;</userinput></screen>

    <para>If an X Window System is going to be installed on the LFS
    system, it may be necessary to recompile Vim after installing X. Vim
    comes with a GUI version of the editor that requires X and some
    additional libraries to be installed. For more information on this
    process, refer to the Vim documentation and the Vim installation page
    in the BLFS book at <ulink
    url="&blfs-root;view/svn/postlfs/editors.html#postlfs-editors-vim"/>.</para>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="conf-vim" role="configuration">
    <title>Configuring Vim</title>

    <indexterm zone="conf-vim">
      <primary sortas="e-/etc/vimrc">/etc/vimrc</primary>
    </indexterm>

    <para>By default, <command>vim</command> runs in vi-incompatible mode.
    This may be new to users who have used other editors in the past. The
    <quote>nocompatible</quote> setting is included below to highlight the
    fact that a new behavior is being used. It also reminds those who would
    change to <quote>compatible</quote> mode that it should be the first
    setting in the configuration file. This is necessary because it changes
    other settings, and overrides must come after this setting. Create a default
    <command>vim</command> configuration file by running the following:</para>

<screen><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/vimrc &lt;&lt; "EOF"
<literal>" Begin /etc/vimrc

set nocompatible
set backspace=2
syntax on
if (&amp;term == "iterm") || (&amp;term == "putty")
  set background=dark
endif

" End /etc/vimrc</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>

    <para>The <parameter>set nocompatible</parameter> setting makes
    <command>vim</command> behave in a more useful way (the default) than
    the vi-compatible manner. Remove the <quote>no</quote> to keep the
    old <command>vi</command> behavior. The <parameter>set
    backspace=2</parameter> setting allows backspacing over line breaks,
    autoindents, and the start of insert. The <parameter>syntax
    on</parameter> parameter enables vim's syntax highlighting. Finally,
    the <emphasis>if</emphasis> statement with the <parameter>set
    background=dark</parameter> setting corrects <command>vim</command>'s
    guess about the background color of some terminal emulators. This
    gives the highlighting a better color scheme for use on the black
    background of these programs.</para>

    <para>Documentation for other available options can be obtained by
    running the following command:</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>vim -c ':options'</userinput></screen>

    <note>
      <para>By default, Vim only installs spell files for the English language.
      To install spell files for your preferred language, download the
      <filename>*.spl</filename> and optionally, the <filename>*.sug</filename>
      files for your language and character encoding from <ulink
      url="ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/runtime/spell/"/> and save them to
      <filename class='directory'>/usr/share/&vim-docdir;/spell/</filename>.</para>

      <para>To use these spell files, some configuration in
      <filename>/etc/vimrc</filename> is needed, e.g.:</para>

<screen><literal>set spelllang=en,ru
set spell</literal></screen>

      <para>For more information, see the appropriate README file located
      at the URL above.</para>
    </note>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="contents-vim" role="content">
    <title>Contents of Vim</title>

    <segmentedlist>
      <segtitle>Installed programs</segtitle>

      <seglistitem>
        <seg>ex (link to vim), rview (link to vim), rvim (link to vim), 
        vi (link to vim), view (link to vim), vim, 
        vimdiff (link to vim), vimtutor, and xxd</seg>
      </seglistitem>
    </segmentedlist>

    <variablelist>
      <bridgehead renderas="sect3">Short Descriptions</bridgehead>
      <?dbfo list-presentation="list"?>
      <?dbhtml list-presentation="table"?>

      <varlistentry id="ex">
        <term><command>ex</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Starts <command>vim</command> in ex mode</para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim ex">
            <primary sortas="b-ex">ex</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="rview">
        <term><command>rview</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Is a restricted version of <command>view</command>; no shell
          commands can be started and <command>view</command> cannot be
          suspended</para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim rview">
            <primary sortas="b-rview">rview</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="rvim">
        <term><command>rvim</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Is a restricted version of <command>vim</command>; no shell
          commands can be started and <command>vim</command> cannot be
          suspended</para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim rvim">
            <primary sortas="b-rvim">rvim</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="vi">
        <term><command>vi</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Link to <command>vim</command></para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim vi">
            <primary sortas="b-vi">vi</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="view">
        <term><command>view</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Starts <command>vim</command> in read-only mode</para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim view">
            <primary sortas="b-view">view</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="vim">
        <term><command>vim</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Is the editor</para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim vim">
            <primary sortas="b-vim">vim</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="vimdiff">
        <term><command>vimdiff</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Edits two or three versions of a file with <command>vim</command>
          and show differences</para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim vimdiff">
            <primary sortas="b-vimdiff">vimdiff</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="vimtutor">
        <term><command>vimtutor</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Teaches the basic keys and commands of
          <command>vim</command></para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim vimtutor">
            <primary sortas="b-vimtutor">vimtutor</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="xxd">
        <term><command>xxd</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>Creates a hex dump of the given file; it can
          also do the reverse, so it can be used for binary patching</para>
          <indexterm zone="ch-system-vim xxd">
            <primary sortas="b-xxd">xxd</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

    </variablelist>

  </sect2>

</sect1>