vimfiles

Windows Vim configuration files based on the recommendations of Ruslan Osipov, Keep Your vimrc file clean and The musings of bluz71.

:help vimrc recommends moving vimrc and gvimrc to vimfiles to make the setup more portable.

Installation

Several applications are assumed to be in the PATH, install git-scm and select User Git and optional Unix tools from the Windows Command Prompt. See steps to add a local bin directory for the other applications referenced in the vim configuration files.

Manual installation steps for older versions of WSL provides the steps automated by wsl install.

$Software = @(
  'Git.Git --interactive',
  'Microsoft.PowerToys',
  'Microsoft.WindowsTerminal',
  'UniversalCtags.Ctags',
  'astral-sh.uv'
)
$Software |  ForEach-Object -Process {
  winget install $_
}

dism.exe /online /enable-feature `
  /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart
# wsl --install -d Ubuntu --web-download

SSL Error

• github: server certificate verification failed
  • server certificate verification failed. CAfile: none CRLfile: none
  • SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate
• How to fix ssl certificate problem unable to get local issuer certificate Git error

openssl s_client -showcerts -servername github.com -connect github.com:443 \
  </dev/null 2>/dev/null |
  sed -n -e '/BEGIN\ CERTIFICATE/,/END\ CERTIFICATE/ p'  > github-com.pem
# On Linux
cat github-com.pem | sudo tee -a /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
# On windows C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\ssl\certs\ or some variant.
cat github-com.pem | tee -a /mingw64/etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt

Install Vim on Windows Subsystem for Linux

On Debian derivatives, like Ubuntu, the dotfiles repository provides an installation script for a compatible version of Vim with GTK3. It also links ~/.vim/ to Windows $USERPROFILE/vimfiles/ to share configuration across environments.

Install Vim on Windows

Vim-win32-installer includes python3/dyn. Download and install or use chocolatey: choco install vim.

• Download the selected zip file and adjust the paths as needed.
• Update python version specification in environment.yml to match linked version in vim: vim --version | grep python --color
• See Get-Help .\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 for additional information.

$DestinationPath = Get-Item -Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs"
$Path = Get-ChildItem -Path ~\Downloads\gvim_9.*_x64_signed.zip

Move-Item -Path "$DestinationPath\Vim\vim91" `
  -Destination "$DestinationPath\Vim\vim91.old" `
  -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Expand-Archive -Path $Path -DestinationPath $DestinationPath

# Check vim works and remove old version.
vim --version | grep python --color

Remove-Item -Path "$DestinationPath\Vim\vim91.old" -Recurse -Force

# If needed, create the batch files using the installer.
& $(Get-Item -Path "$DestinationPath\Vim\vim91\install.exe")

# If python/dyn version changes, update the YAML file, remove and re-create
# the conda environment.
conda update conda -n base
conda activate base

conda env remove -n vim-python
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Conda

# Add/update Start Menu shortcuts.
$IconLocation = Get-Item "$DestinationPath\Vim\vim91\gvim.exe"
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Shortcut -IconLocation "$IconLocation"

vimfiles installation

To install in Windows under $env:LOCALAPPDATA\vimfiles and symbolic link to $HOME.

cd $env:TMP
curl  --output Install-Vimfiles.ps1 `
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jfishe/vimfiles/master/Install-Vimfiles.ps1

# To change defaults:
Get-Help .\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Full

# Clone and install submodules.
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Clone

# Symlink vimfiles and dotfiles to $HOME.
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Link

# Create Start-Menu shortcuts.
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Shortcut

# Copy wsl -d Ubuntu /usr/share/dict/words to vimfiles/dictionary/words.
# Install dictionary if needed.
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Dictionary

# Download Moby Thesaurus from
# https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zeke/moby/master/words.txt
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Thesaurus

# Create/update conda environment compatible with `python3/dyn`.
# Create/update Vim batch files to activate vim-python prior to starting Vim.
.\Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Conda

If you plan to share vimfiles with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), ensure git uses line feed for EOL. Install-Vimfiles.ps1 automates this by setting the global .gitconfig to override the system defaults.

Vimwiki

New Vimwiki Diary

When creating a new diary (Journal) file, VimwikiTitleJournal creates the title heading and copies the previous diary entry from Todo second-level heading through the end of file.

VimwikiLinkHandler

VimwikiLinkHandler opens local: and file: URLs with wslview or, on Windows, with start!.

Registered Wikis

• Assume registered wikis, g:vimwiki_list are in the Windows Documents folder or user home directory. You may need to link %USERPROFILE%\Documents to the actual location, e.g., OneDrive.

  If the %USERPROFILE%\Documents does not exit, either create it, or create a link to the Windows Documents folder.

  • To locate the Windows Documents folder in cmd.exe:

    set REG_PATH=HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
    set REG_PATH=%REG_PATH%User Shell Folders
    reg query "%REG_PATH%" /v Personal
    

  • If you have administrator rights or PowerShell 7, create a symbolic link:

    $Parameters = @{
      Path = "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\" +
        "User Shell Folders"
      Name = "Personal"
    }
    $Target = Get-ItemPropertyValue @Parameters
    New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\Documents" `
      -Target "$Target"

  • Otherwise create a Directory Junction by replacing <Target> with the path reported by reg query above:

    cmd /c "mklink /J %USERPROFILE%\Documents <Target>"
    

Windows Python Version

On Windows python3/dyn may point to a later version of python than conda supports in the base environment. Copy or update gvim.bat. The usual locations are:

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\gvim.bat
• %WINDIR%\gvim.bat

Adding a call to conda and creating a Start-Menu shortcut can resolve the issue, e.g:

Installing with chocolatey will clobber the Vim batch files because it replaces any it finds in $env:WINDIR and $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\WindowsApps. The following snippet ensures the batch files are in $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\WindowsApps and calls a Vim function to activate a compatible conda envirionment. See Anaconda and Miniconda for installation instructions.

Rebuild the vim-python whenever the python minor version changes, e.g., from Python 3.9 to 3.10. Edit environment.yml to update the python version and move other packages to requirements.txt. Conda packages typically lag python versions; the pip versions tend to update first.

Anaconda and Miniconda

Install Miniconda or Anaconda per the directions in the Anaconda Documentation.

environment.yml lists the conda and pip packages needed for the Vim configuration.

To add packages to the conda environment for use by Vim:

# Periodically update the base and vim-python environments.
conda update -n base conda
conda update -n vim-python --all

Thesaurus

Setup instructions are included in vimrc to install the Moby Thesaurus List by Grady Ward from Project Gutenberg. Use a browser; the site blocks scripted download.

Moby-thesaurus.org/ maintains words.txt.

Dictionary

Refer to :help dictionary and download or symlink dictionary/words. See below for symlink instructions.

Install-Vimfiles.ps1 -Dictionary assumes Ubuntu is the default and copies the dictionary since symlinks into WSL fail when the distro isn't started.

grepprg and grepformat

ripgrep should be installed with chocolatey, conda or uv tool install ripgrep.

Gutentags & Universal ctags

• Gutentags
• universal-ctags provides direction for obtaining pre-built ctags binary without needing source-forge.

Conquer of Completion (CoC)

Conquer of Completion does not depend on the python compiled with Vim. It supports Node.js modules that perform the linting functions of ALE.

The script after/plugin/coc.vim installs extensions using g:coc_global_extensions. Install CoC under opt instead of start to allow disabling when node.js is unavailable.

Asynchronous Lint Engine (ALE)

The Asynchronous Lint Engine supports various linting (ALELint) and formatting (ALEFix) tools. Many of these are Node.js packages. See jfishe/ALE_Nodejs for a list and installation instructions. Others can be installed by conda or uv pip. See environment.yml for a list.

Jupyter Notebook

git configuration

nbdime is configured by:

pip install nbdime
nbdime config-git --enable --global

Windows Setup

ColorTool

New schemes may be tested and exported to iTerm2 format with terminal.sexy.

• Introducing the Windows Console Colortool
• ColorTool.

Setup Python Project

cookiecutter cookiecutter-pypackage

Change to the pypackage directory you created and make initial commit to source control.

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial project scaffold"
git status

virtualenv env
# Use env/bin/activate on Linux
env\Scripts\activate
pip install -e .

Git

ElateralLtd git commit template provides a template and installation script for standard git commit messages.

The Vim that ships with Git-bash can use the same profile as Gvim. Using WSL bash is the easiest method to create soft-links. Git-bash won't and recommends using mklink, but mklink usually has complex ACL issues, especially in a corporate environment. PowerShell and CMD do not recognize soft-linked directories so use mklink /J LINK TARGET.

The following assumes that git-bash has been configured to use %USERPROFILE% as home, which may be different than the default %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%. Also, Documents could be My Documents. Adjust the path for actual location of vimfiles and vimwiki. The vim startup script assumes that for anything, except Windows cmd.exe, that these files are located in $HOME. Soft-links allow pointing to the actual location.

The Case for Pull Rebase

The Case for Pull Rebase recommends avoiding merge commits, except when they're useful, such as for Pull Request merges.

git pull --rebase|-r # Normal to avoid merge commits.
git pull --rebase=preserve # When local merge commit preserved, like Pull Request.
git config --global pull.rebase preserve

# if you're on Git 2.18 or later
git pull --rebase=merges
git config --global pull.rebase merges

Git diff for Excel Files

Xltrail suggested 3 steps to make Spreadsheet Compare work with git diff. The proposed DOS batch script does not work with Microsoft Office 2016 because spreadsheetcompare is not an installed application. Install a modified version, which uses AppVLP.exe, as follows:

cmd /c "mklink $env:USERPROFILE\bin\xldiff.bat $env:LOCALAPPDATA\vimfiles\xldiff.bat"

.gitconfig defines [diff "excel"] and .gitattributes_global sets diff=excel for all Excel file extensions. The batch script pauses git so that it does not delete any temporary files it creates. Press <Enter> in the shell after exiting spreadsheetcompare.

KeePass2, KeeAgent and SSH

KeeAgent (for KeePass) on Bash on Windows / WSL provides a howto. Git-bash only requires export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=~/keeagent_msys.socket in .bash_profile, depending on the KeeAgent settings in KeePass2.

Map Caps Lock to Escape, or any key to any key

On Windows install PowerToys or Uncap.

Install PowerToys

• choco install powertoys
• Open PowerToys Settings application.
• In Keyboard Manager, map Caps Lock to Esc.

vimfiles Update

Install the plugins in the Git repository.

git pull
git submodule update --init --recursive
vim -c 'packloadall | helptags ALL | qa'

Update to the latest versions and commit the changes, if any.

git submodule update --init --recursive --remote
vim -c 'packloadall | helptags ALL | qa'
git commit -am "chore: update submodules"
git push