My development toolbox

Plugins

syntastic

Automatically compiles source code or runs linters on it, and displays errors in a useful ways. I use it with Python (Flake8), Go and Rust (compilation and formatting). My settings currently are:

let g:syntastic_always_populate_loc_list = 1
let g:syntastic_auto_loc_list = 1
let g:syntastic_check_on_open = 1
let g:syntastic_check_on_wq = 0
let g:syntastic_aggregate_errors = 1
let g:syntastic_python_checkers = ['flake8']
let g:syntastic_python_flake8_args = "--ignore=W503,E129,H238"
let g:syntastic_rst_checkers = []
let g:syntastic_rust_checkers = ['rustc']
let g:syntastic_rust_rustc_exe = 'cargo check'
let g:syntastic_rust_rustc_fname = ''
let g:syntastic_rust_rustc_args = '--'
highlight SyntasticErrorSign guifg=white guibg=red

vim-visual-multi

Multiple cursors (and more) for ViM, Sublime users know what I'm talking about. I tend to use it more often than not even for operations that have native ViM counterparts, like replacing occurences of the same word. The only customizations I have are mappings to avoid using arrow keys (you don't use arrow keys with ViM/Emacs, do you?):

let g:VM_maps = {}
let g:VM_maps["Select Cursor Down"] = '<C-j>'
let g:VM_maps["Select Cursor Up"]   = '<C-k>'
let g:VM_maps["Select l"]   = '<C-l>'
let g:VM_maps["Select h"]   = '<C-h>'

The first two commands create or remove an additional vertical cursor below or above the current cursor, the last two add text to the right or to the left to a cursor.

YouCompleteMe

An advanced auto-completion engine supporting many programming languages. Offers fuzzy search, which I'm a big fan of. It did take some time to tune auto-completion pop-up to work exactly the way I want, the current configuration is:

set completeopt=preview,menuone,noselect,noinsert
inoremap <expr> <CR>  pumvisible() ? "\<C-y>\<CR>" : "\<CR>"
let g:ycm_autoclose_preview_window_after_completion = 1

This prevents the completion from interfering with my input if I decide to ignore it (which I often do, especially when writing a text like this).

A downside of this plugin is that it requires compiling an external server, which crashes from time to time. It also does not work with ViM 7, so to support RHEL/CentOS I need to do

if v:version > 800
    Plugin 'ycm-core/YouCompleteMe'
endif

python-mode, rust.vim and vim-go

No big surprises here, these plugins add additional support for Python, Rust and Go languages accordingly.

Go highlighting needs some tuning to my liking:

let g:go_highlight_fields = 1
let g:go_highlight_functions = 1
let g:go_highlight_function_calls = 1
let g:go_highlight_extra_types = 1
let g:go_highlight_operators = 1

Python configuration needs some tuning as well:

let g:pymode = 1
let g:pymode_indent = 1
let g:pymode_lint = 0
let g:pymode_breakpoint_bind = '<Leader>B'
let g:pymode_rope = 1

(I'm enabling Rope integration and disabling features that conflict with other plugins and settings).

fzf and fzf.vim

This is a true pearl of my toolbox! FZF is a fuzzy finder for… anything! If you just run it from the command line, it will start fuzzy search of files in the current directory. But together with ViM it opens amazing opportunities! Check out these short-cuts (the leader key is \`):

" Search for files in the current git repository
map <Leader>f :GFiles<CR>
" Search for open buffers
map <Leader>b :Buffers<CR>
" Search for lines in the output of the_silver_searcher
map <Leader>a :Ag<CR>
" Search for lines in open buffers
map <Leader>l :Lines<CR>
" Search for lines in the current buffer
map <Leader>s :BLines<CR>

All searches are fuzzy, which I am personally really fond of! It's also surprisingly fast.

vim-commentary

Commands for file type dependent commenting and uncommenting of lines.

ReplaceWithRegister

Command for replacing text with the content of a register.

vim-wordmotion

This is a recent and controversial addition to my toolbox. Together with this bit of configuration:

let g:wordmotion_uppercase_spaces = ['(', ')', "'", '"', ',', '.', '[', ']']

it makes lower-case word motions stop at underscores and camel-case words, while the upper-case motions work more or less as normal motions in ViM.

vim-swap

Commands for swapping arguments in a function call or a signature. Addresses the annoyingly common need of turning

def foo(b, a):

into

def foo(a, b):

(yes, I used this plugin right now to create these examples).

Vundle

A plugin system for enabling the described plugins.

Settings

Some settings have not been covered above:

" Tabs and spaces (with an exception for YAML)
set tabstop=8
set expandtab
set softtabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
autocmd BufEnter *.yml setlocal softtabstop=2
autocmd BufEnter *.yml setlocal shiftwidth=2
autocmd BufEnter *.yaml setlocal softtabstop=2
autocmd BufEnter *.yaml setlocal shiftwidth=2

" Enable line numbers
set number

" Configure text width (with an exception for Rust)
set textwidth=79
set colorcolumn=80
autocmd BufEnter *.rs setlocal textwidth=100
autocmd BufEnter *.rs setlocal colorcolumn=101

" Highlight trailing whitespace with red
autocmd BufEnter * highlight BadWhitespace ctermbg=red guibg=red
autocmd BufEnter * match BadWhitespace /\s\+$/

" Jump to current search results
set incsearch

" Keep more context when scrolling
set scrolloff=5

" Do not unload hidden buffers (prevents annoying requests to save changes
" on switching buffers
set hidden

Convenient short-cuts:

" Navigating the error list
map [f :lfirst<CR>
map [n :lnext<CR>
map [p :lprev<CR>
map [l :llast<CR>

" Inserting dates in ISO format
map <Leader>di i<C-R>=strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S UTC%z")<CR><Esc>hi:<Esc>ll
map <Leader>da a<C-R>=strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S UTC%z")<CR><Esc>hi:<Esc>ll