Configuring Vim with your .vimrc

Vim reads configuration from a .vimrc file. Vim works out of the box, but there are certain options which make working with code a lot easier.

In Unix-like systems, files starting with a period . are hidden. To see them, run ls -a in a Command line.

In Linux and MacOS, .vimrc is located in your user directory (the full path would be /home/<username>/.vimrc). You can also find out your user directory by opening a Command Prompt and running the following command:

$ echo $HOME

Windows does not allow periods in file names, so the file is named _vimrc. It's usually located in C:\Users\<username>\_vimrc, but you can also locate it by opening the Windows Command Prompt and running the following command:

$ echo %USERPROFILE%

If you run into problems, open Vim and type in :echo $MYVIMRC followed by Enter. It should display where Vim is reading the .vimrc from.

Find the proper location for your OS, and place the prepared configuration file there. You can download the .vimrc used for this chapter from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Mastering-Vim/tree/master/Chapter01. The following code shows the contents of a .vimrc file used in this chapter:

syntax on                  " Enable syntax highlighting.
filetype plugin indent on  " Enable file type based indentation.

set autoindent             " Respect indentation when starting a new line.
set expandtab              " Expand tabs to spaces. Essential in Python.
set tabstop=4              " Number of spaces tab is counted for.
set shiftwidth=4           " Number of spaces to use for autoindent.

set backspace=2            " Fix backspace behavior on most terminals.

colorscheme murphy         " Change a colorscheme.

Lines starting with a double quote " are comments and are ignored by Vim. These settings bring in some sensible defaults, like syntax highlighting and consistent indentation. They also fix one of the common sticking points in a bare-bones Vim installation—inconsistent backspace key behavior across different environments.

When working with Vim configuration, you can try things out before adding them to your .vimrc file To do that, type : followed by a command, for example, :set autoindent (press Enter to execute). If you ever want to know the value of a setting, add ? at the end of the command: for example, :set tabstop? will tell you the current tabstop value.

I've also changed the colorscheme to make screenshots look better in print, but you don't have to.

Vim 8 comes prepackaged with the following color themes: blue, darkblue, default, delek, desert, elflord, evening, industry, koehler, morning, murhpy, pablo, peachpuff, ron, shine, slate, torte, zellner. You can try out a color theme by typing :colorscheme <name> and hitting Enter, and you can cycle through the available color scheme names by typing :colorscheme followed by a space and by hitting Tab multiple times. You can read more about configuring Vim and color schemes in chapter 7, Making Vim Your Own.