Vim as a full IDE without Plugins

And you thought it couldn’t be done. Weak!

Assumptions

• You know the basics of how to use Vim

Basic Usability Config

• First we need reasonable config
• this is pretty minimal

 " Set your configuration to some reasonable defaults
 set nocompatible              

 " Enable line numbers
 set number

 " Enable line indenting
 set autoindent
 set smartindent

 " Enable syntax highlighting
 syntax on

 " Enable search highlighting
 set hlsearch

 " set clipboard=unnamedplus
 set clipboard+=unnamed

Windows, Buffers, Splits

Resizing and managing Windows

ctrl-w Then some stuff

The integrated Terminal

:term

Netrw - your file explorer

:Ex

Making windows feel familiar

Now we have all the ingredients we need to setup a familar window layout

• File Drawer on the left
• integrated terminal at the bottom

File Drawer with NetRW in a window

vnew | Ex | 20wincmd <

This pipes 3 commands together

• make a new vertical split
• open the NetRW file explorer
• run the wincmd that reduces the width of the panel 20 times
  • for some reason you can’t do wincmd 30 < like you can 30 < but hey, we have ex commands repeat thingy

Integrated terminals

rightbelow sp | 20wincmd - | term ++curwin

Similar to the previous one

• this creates a split below
• reduces its size 20 times
• opens a terminal in the current window (without ++curwin neovim will spawn this in a new split instead of the one we just made)

File Navigation: Links, Find, and Path

Vim has surprisingly great tools for file navigation

Find - :find
setpath +=

Session Management

Takes the current set of buffers, tabs, windows, etc. and saves it as a vimcript where you are

Create asession

:mksession

load with

vim -S Session.vim 

Session Automation