MacVim

8.2.2164

8.2.2164

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The version specified in MacUpdate is 2 years old -_- For the latest versions refer to this link : https://github.com/b4winckler/macvim/downloads PS: MacVim Rocks

Exactly CHIGGSY. And that's why they don't understand how we create those thousands of 'false gods' by simply 'yy1000p' and they get tired of pressing 'Select through Newline,Ctrl-C,Ctrl-V{1000 times}' and finally choose one 'false god' and they try to be happy with that. Congrates (Mac)Vim.

Well, exactly what I want are thousands of text specific features. This is _the_ editor, unless you run emacs, and of course all those people, having internalized the concept of "false gods" have cheerily begun running textmate instead. Enough about that. MacVim is an excellent version of gvim, easily the lushest and sexiest one i've ever seen. Vim on os X used to be like firefox, a thing from another place, a foul, alien and misshapen troll lurking under the bridge named /Applications. No longer. MacVim is gvim for os X, what an os X program should be like, combined with every optimization that code editing needs and thousands more that are "nice". Vim has a steep learning curve, like all things Unix. Of course, people program are not stupid, people who program on unix platforms are unafraid of complexity, or at least _were_ not stupid, and _were_ unafraid of complexity. If you are are fearful, why , pay fear's price and fire up some 100 meg IDE and have it hold your hand and change your diapers. If you for some reason, need to have less features because due to some unseen yet crippling inability to teach your muscles to do something, which is a vim requirement, then by golly use something with an "easier learning curve". It's ok. I'm sure your $DEITY will still love you. Not mine though. We have higher standards, and things to get done, and that's why we'll be using MacVim.

Vi/Vim is, of course, an extremely powerful text editor, which is infamously difficult to learn. In my experience, it is THE hardest text editor to learn, often requiring several months before the new user feels that they are starting to feel comfortable with the new tool. Even as recently as a couple of years ago, this kind of time investment was worthwhile, if you were a programmer, who had to spend a lot of your day in front of the computer, juggling different graphical text editors who provide only half of the features set you need for any language. There was nothing this powerful available. Unfortunately for vi/vim, now there certainly is. Editors like TextMate now have a much gentler learning curve, while still providing the user with a fantastically wide feature set, and an amazing level of customisation. Other editing environments, like Panic's CODA, have concentrated on a different approach, helping you save time not by filling up the editor with thousands of specific text-production features, but by combining the functionality of several pieces of software into one, which saves up even MORE juggling time. This port of vim is certainly well done. It is stable, and more Mac-like than anything out there. It is still very powerful, but becoming less so, as other editors catch up, and start providing features which vim does not have. For instance: easy project management features (ie., having a folder view) would be a welcoming addition, which would not be too difficult to implement. Vim does provide some wonderful text-production features, but that is ALL it provides. If these were coupled with some of the easy and time-saving workflow features now present in the majority of other text editors out there, then vim's steep learning curve would be more attractive. As it stands, the vast majority of users will prefer to use tools that are easier to grasp, and which - in the long run - will save them just as much time as vim would.

Why would you use KDE icons for a MAc app??

Ok, let me expand on that initial reaction. Vim is, of course, the best text editor. This implementation of it does by far the best job I've seen of balancing Vim-ness with Mac-ness; it preserves all the wonderful Vim keybindings but also supplies OS X goodies like multiple windows (which the vastly inferior "Carbon Vim" had led me to believe was downright impossible), pretty tabs, transparency, and plenty of other goodies. I had been juggling TextMate and Carbon Vim, but this new contender puts Vim way out ahead again. I suspect that's exactly where it will stay until TextMate adds modal editing: ha! Not likely. Long story short: Bjorn Winckler, you're my new hero.