Now, before we dive into the most used and popular Vim plugins,
let us first understand what Vim really is. Basically, Vim is just another text editor that we
can use to write and edit the text just like Sublime Text, which we
commonly use for Windows or Mac, or even Notepad that we use for
Windows. Vim allows efficient text editing and it is sometimes even
considered as an entire IDE for programmers. Editing existing code
for software engineers become very time consuming and mundane.
Since Vim is all about efficiency, it allows us to handle
repetitive tasks using existing keyboard shortcuts or even
customize and create our own. [1]
Popular Vim Plugins
Vim is one of the oldest text editors yet it is still going
strong! It is full-grown, steady and expandable with all the
ground-breaking plugins accessible everywhere throughout the web.
What a Vim plugin does is that it helps to extend the functionality
of Vim by supercharging our workflow with it.
A vim plugin is basically is a plethora of Vimscript records
that are spread out in a specific catalog structure. Vim plugins
were typically circulated as tarballs before the plugin managers
got famous among people. Vim plugins incorporate additional
features in Vim – those that are not native to the editor. On
account of Vim, there are various plugins accessible for a wide
range of purposes. Truth be told, plugins are perhaps the most
grounded purpose of Vim.
01. Nerd-tree
One of the widely used vim
plugins includes Nerd-tree. This works best while working for
bigger ventures or projects as it tends to be elusive to find the
name and area of the one document that incorporates the one line
you have to alter. Thus, using this plugin you can perform basic
file system operations, easily browse through complex catalog
chains of importance and even peruse and alter documents at
whatever point you need by rapidly opening those records.
With a brisk keystroke, an explorer window opens in a vertical
split, and you can without much of a stretch peruse to the record
you need and open it. It is an absolute necessity for huge
assortments of code. And then again, also for those individuals who
find it hard to remember filenames.
02. MatchIt
This Vim plugin allows us to
make matches between characters, strings, words and even regular
expressions. MatchIt expands the current usefulness of the “%” key
(percent key). The original “%” key enables you to hop between
different sets of characters and some programming constructs. For
instance, it hops between sets of enclosure ( )’s, { }’s, [
]’s.
MatchIt vim plugin expands this usefulness. It adds support to
cycle between if, else if, else, endif catchphrases in different
programming dialects. Another improvement it has made is the
capacity to discover sets of HTML labels, for example,
<p> … </p>.
03. Tag list
While programming in a file
of any critical size, losing track of where you are and thus
winding up and down looking for something specific is anything but
difficult. Here comes the Tag list plugin as your savior. With the
Tag List plugin, you can just type: Tlist and get a vertical split
with variables, types, classes, and functions that you can without
much of a stretch bounce to.
04. Vim rainbow
Almost all major programming languages[5] use brackets for
different intents and purposes – square, round and curly brackets.
Frequently it is the case that brackets are used as multiple pairs
installed inside one another. This, sometimes, becomes very hectic
to understand with closing bracket belongs to which opening
bracket.
Here comes the Vim Rainbow plugin to the rescue as it gives each
pair of brackets a different shade of color, thereby making it
super easy and fun to handle. Hence, it is anything but difficult
to recognize which brackets belong to one another. It’s
exceptionally helpful and extremely vivid, as well.
Nerd commenter is one
of the most useful vim plugins and what is basically does is a
comment on a particular area of code. If you select a code and
press Leader+cc, your code will be commented on.
For uncommenting, press Leader+cn, and
your code will be uncommented. This adds a useful asset to
your work process permitting you to remark out just as remark in
lines exceptionally quick.
06. Gitgutter
Gitgutter is a very famous
and widely used Vim plugin by top programmers. The Gitgutter plugin
prepares a column beside the line numbers (on the left side of the
screen) that displays lines (along with signs) which were added
(+), altered (~), or eliminated (-). The signs and line highlights
are fully customizable using Gitgutter.
Moreover, Gitgutter also allows users to jump quickly between
blocks of changed lines called “hunks”. We can also display, stage,
as well as undo singular hunks; and stage partial hunks. The module
additionally gives a hunk content item and consistently guarantees
the signs are forward-thinking.
07. Lightline
One of the best Vim
plugins includes Lightline. Several users prefer lightline as a
plugin to replace their default status line, even though there are
a lot of other plugins that are available which works in the same
way. However, Lightline provides a more vivid and attractive bar to
work with.
This particular Vim plugin provides light as well as a
configurable status line (also called tab line) for Vim. Not only
does it lay out several color schemes to match the editor color
scheme, but also replace vim’s dull and monotonous retro-looking
status bar with a much prettier and a colorful one.
08. Auto pairs
Auto Pairs is one of the
common Vim plugins used by users. This specific one is used to
insert and delete pairs of characters, such as brackets,
parentheses, or even quotation marks. It is very helpful for
programmers to use Auto Pairs during coding as most of the
programming languages use several pairs of characters in their
syntax, for instance, parentheses for function calls or quotation
marks for string definitions. Also, auto pairs place the
corresponding closing character when we type an opening
character.
09. Ack
Ack is one of the popular Vim plugins used by programmers all
over the world. This specific plugin basically acts as a search
tool for programmers while coding in Vim. Every now and then we
would like to search for a particular file containing a specific
line or even just a word, and ack is just the right plugin for Vim
users.
Not only does it allow us to search files within Vim but it also
displays results in a separate and split window for our betterment.
Above all, it also shows the line number of the occurrence, once
for each occurrence.
10. Vim fugitive
Vim Fugitive is one of
the best Vim plugins used by top programmers and it is created by
Tim Pope. It is a very useful plugin for us as it is the best Git
wrapper of all time which lets us carry out Git commands directly
from Vim and also integrates with Vim’s interface. Everything in
Vim is reversible within vim buffer using Vim Fugitive.
Some of the commands of Fugitive are:
- :Gstatus – Bring up an improvised version of git status.
- :Gwrite – Stages the present record to the file.
- :Gremove – Deletes the current file and the corresponding Vim
buff - :Gread – Reverts current file to last checked.
- :Gmove – Renames the present record and the relating Vim
buff
11. Fzf
Fzf (also called ‘fuzzy finder’) is
an interactive Unix filter for command-line and is not a Vim plugin
itself. It can be used with any list. The lists are like files,
command history, hostnames, bookmarks, processes, git commits
and so on. For Vim, the official assortment only gives the basic
wrapper function.
It depends on the users what commands they want to enter with
it. It is one of the best plugins to use because it is Portable,
with no dependencies. Then again, it is blazingly quick. Fzf has
one of the most comprehensive features set with Flexible layout and
there are batteries included.
12. ALE
ALE (also called as ‘Asynchronous
Lint Engine’) is one of the best Vim plugins. ALE provides syntax
checking and semantic errors (an error in logic or arithmetic that
must be detected in run time) while you edit your text files, which
is called “linting” in NeoVim 0.2.0+ and Vim 8. It acts as a Vim
Language Server convention customer.
ALE can convey required help for fixing code writings with order
line instruments utilizing a non-blocking way with the: ALEFix
feature. It is likewise ready to help devices in numerous dialects,
similar to model: prettier, autopep8, eslint and some more.
13. Vim surround
Vim Surround (used as
‘Surround.vim’) is another frequently used Vim plugin. This plugin
is all about “surroundings” like mostly used for parentheses,
brackets, quotes, XML tags, and many more. The plugin is able to
provide mappings to edit, delete, change and add such surroundings
in pairs as a command.
This plugin is very useful for editing HTML and XML[15]. Using this plugin, the
task of adding, changing, and removing pairs of tags simultaneously
is very comfortable and lenient.
Example: If we Press ‘cs’, it will be able to transform the
text,
From,
” Vim Plugin!”
To,
‘ Vim Plugin!’
14.
Vim-multiple-cursors
Vim-multiple-cursors is a very useful Vim plugin for
selecting multiple texts at a time and also a great attempt to
increase the use of multiple text selection. Already there were
numerous endeavors seen at presenting to Sublime[17] Text’s splendid various
determination highlights into Vim. As for use with full
functionality and tools, it requires vim 7.4 or newer.
For an existing Vim user, no plugin has so far been a trusted
port other than Vim-Multiple-cursors, as it is quite easy to use,
yet powerful and also intuitive enough. It even works on Mac OS,
where it is known as MacVim.
15. Solarized
‘Solarized’ is a shading
palette included 16 hues (eight monotones, eight complement hues)
which is intended for use with terminal and GUI applications and
Vim. This Vim plugin has several singular and incom[arable
properties with various collections of themes. These color palettes
in the themes are sometimes exactly the same as in Solarized.
Some highlight groups are seen slightly differently due to
various text colors. One of the latest solarized plugins for Vim is
Solarized 8: True colors. This is a Solarized
topic for Vim, set somewhere between the first Solarized and the
Flattened variation module.
Final Thoughts
The ultra-stable feature of Vim plugins is probably the best
part of the Vim plugin feature. With each new plugin coming out
every other day, you can improve your experience with using Vim
tremendously. Not only has a vim plugin made our jobs easier while
working on Vim, but it has also made things very interesting and
appealing.
These were only some of our picks of the various vim plugins
available out there. We hope that it was helpful to you in some
way. Please do not forget to share our article and help others with
this knowledge.
References
- ^
100
Useful Vim Commands That You’ll Need Every day
(www.ubuntupit.com) - ^
Get
Nerd-tree (www.vim.org) - ^
MatchIt
(www.vim.org) - ^
Tag List
(vim-taglist.sourceforge.net) - ^
Top 20
Most Popular Programming Languages To Learn For Your Open-source
Project (www.ubuntupit.com) - ^
Vim Rainbow
(github.com) - ^
Nerd
commenter (www.vim.org) - ^
Gitgutter
(www.vim.org) - ^
Lightline
(www.vim.org) - ^
Auto
pairs (www.vim.org) - ^
Ack
(www.vim.org) - ^
Vim
fugitive (www.vim.org) - ^
Fzf
(github.com) - ^
ALE
(www.vim.org) - ^
Linux
Text Editor: 20 Text and HTML Editors Reviewed for Linux Nerds
(www.ubuntupit.com) - ^
Vim
Surround (www.vim.org) - ^
Sublime Text Editor: A Sophisticated
Text Editor for Linux and Programming
(www.ubuntupit.com) - ^
Vim-multiple-cursors
(www.vim.org) - ^
Solarized
(www.vim.org)
Read more https://www.ubuntupit.com/best-vim-plugins-for-programming/