Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

skottish · 2008-08-29 19:35:29

I'm finally going to learn Vim, and I will have gVim on my system for a graphical text editor to launch out of pcmanfm. I'm just curious whether any of you feel that there's some advantage to using, or at least learning out of, gVim over Vim.

GGLucas · 2008-08-29 20:56:29

You can just do 'urxvt -e vim' or something like that, no need for gVim, I find it unneccesary when you can just run regular vim, vim over ssh is easier than having to use X forwarding too.
With a 256color terminal and the GuiColorScheme plugin, you don't need it for the colors either.

kamituel · 2008-08-29 21:03:59

I'm using vim every day to edit configuration files, plain text files, shell/perl scripts and, sometimes, small and medium size c/c++ programs.
One of the main advantages is it's speed - vim starts very fast, is responsive and not resource intensive. gVim is also fast, but it takes some more time to start which makes it less comfortable.

All the functionality can be easly (and _quickly_) accessed via keyboard shortcuts, thus making GUI really redundant (and _slower_). But - it will take some time to learn and get used to some of the key bindings.
And one of the most important things for me - vim can easly work with screen and ssh, which makes it possible to login on remote server, edit many files (displaying couple of them on the screen at a time) and then detach your session and continue your work from another computer in another place - I'm using this often to start something at work and then finish it the next day or even the same day but from home. I'm not sure it would be possible with X app like gVim (without any fancy, slower solutions like VNC).

So, the way I'm using vim makes it easier and more convienient to use it basic, non-gui variant.
Probably the best thing you can do is start using command-line vim for some time, and then try to switch to GUI version. And by that time you would know if you really need GUI.

skottish · 2008-08-29 21:35:10

Thanks for the input so far. I've been text editor hopping for a while and started to feel like a giant waste of time; Like I was spending more time figuring out how to get the things set up to my liking than I was actually editing. And I was wondering about gVim because it didn't seem like it was really adding anything. I've never set up a launcher to go straight to a terminal before. That's very cool.

--EDIT--

I'm using sakura, and when I right click, open as, and 'sakura -e vim', it only launches vim. Obviously I need to pass some sort of parameter. Any advice?

Last edited by skottish (2008-08-29 21:37:42)

finferflu · 2008-08-29 21:38:59

I personally use gVim the same way I use Vim, i.e. no GUI (buttons and menus). The preference goes all to the look of the characters. I find it less tiresome to read from gVim as opposed to a terminal, especially when I write extensively.

ArchArael · 2008-08-29 22:15:41

finferflu wrote:

I personally use gVim the same way I use Vim, i.e. no GUI (buttons and menus). The preference goes all to the look of the characters. I find it less tiresome to read from gVim as opposed to a terminal, especially when I write extensively.

Same here.

Finferflu, anche tu sei vegan?

Last edited by ArchArael (2008-08-29 22:18:25)

thisllub · 2008-08-29 22:32:55

GVim with Liberation Mono 12pt and a murphy colorscheme.
Beautiful.
GVim seems to be more consistent with cut and paste between apps.
It is worth checking the key settings as well in terminal vim sessions otherwise the backspace works as a delete key, which I find a PITA.

My top vim tips;
#1 learn a new thing each day.
#2 Use hjkl instead of the arrows.
#3 Use macros based on normal mode commands
#4 Use sessions.

lang2 · 2008-08-29 23:11:59

Another vote for gvim. Using vim for configuration files, etc are fine. But for long session of coding I find gvim much more comfortable.

finferflu · 2008-08-29 23:40:43

ArchArael wrote:

Finferflu, anche tu sei vegan?

[OT] Of course I am! [/OT]

skottish · 2008-08-29 23:53:46

finferflu wrote:

ArchArael wrote:
Finferflu, anche tu sei vegan?
[OT] Of course I am! [/OT]

Salad is MURDER!!!!

-------------------------------NEXT---------------------------

I see what you all mean about gVim being easier on the eyes. I think that I'll start there.

Last edited by skottish (2008-08-29 23:54:11)

Dusty · 2008-08-30 00:21:54

On topic, by accident; I use vim and gvim pretty much interchangably. tabbing works nicer in gvim. If I'm in a console I type vim cause its shorter (or :edit by mistake often enough that I aliased it to vim). I have my console and my gvim both set to use the zenburn theme, so they look pretty much the same.

gvim looks a bit more modern but on ssh and screen vim is cooler. I'd say use gvim when you can and use vim when its more convenient.

Dusty

Fatsobob · 2008-08-30 07:09:20

I use gvim most of the time, but I try to not use the bottons at the top. I get lazy though and often find myself just clicking paste.

ArchArael · 2008-08-30 10:12:04

Dusty wrote:

On topic, by accident; I use vim and gvim pretty much interchangably. tabbing works nicer in gvim. If I'm in a console I type vim cause its shorter (or :edit by mistake often enough that I aliased it to vim). I have my console and my gvim both set to use the zenburn theme, so they look pretty much the same.
gvim looks a bit more modern but on ssh and screen vim is cooler. I'd say use gvim when you can and use vim when its more convenient.
Dusty

I use oceanblack in both but colors are not the same, they are pretty different indeed. I tried zenburn also. In both I type <esc>:color zenburn but only in gvim I have better results.

Maybe I'm missing something. I use Sakura terminal and vim has few colors. Maybe I should use something else for TERM variable....at the moment I have TERM=xterm.

Could you please tell me how did you obtained same colors for vim and gvim?

===EDIT=================================================================================

Kristoffer Stensbo-Smidt wrote:
> I have just made a full install of vim 7.0 and gvim using the package
> manager in Debian. My problem is that the syntax highlighting works very
> badly in the terminal version of vim – if it works at all.
> When I try ':colo desert' it changes only the color of the text (but not
> even to the correct colors) and not the background. When I try ':colo
> chela_light' nothing happens at all. Both of these color schemes work
> perfectly in gvim. Any ideas on how to get this working in the terminal?

> Best regards,
> Kristoffer Stensbo-Smidt

Are you using default terminal colors (light grey on black) or are you using
some "xterm color scheme" outside of Vim? If you are, Vim is not necessarily
aware of it.

What happens if you log in on a text console (Ctrl-Alt-F2 then repli to the
login prompt with username & password) and start Vim there? Can you set
colorschemes properly?

Use ":view $VIM/vimfiles/colors/chela_light_vim" or ":view
~/.vim/colors/chela_light.vim" (depending on where that color scheme is
located -- it should NOT be under $VIMRUNTIME because it wasn't distributed
with Vim and any upgrade can silently change or remove anything in the
$VIMRUNTIME tree). Does it include "cterm/ctermfg/ctermbg" clauses in its
":hi" statements? If not, it's a GUI-only colorscheme.

Similarly with ":view $VIMRUNTIME/colors/desert".

The settings for console Vim in a color terminal (cterm= ctermbg= ctermfg= )
are not necessarily the same as for gvim (gui= guibg= guifg= ) because a color
terminal typically has 8 background and 16 foreground colors, whereas the GUI
typically has 16,777,216 of each kind.

Best regards,
Tony.

source:http://groups.google.com/group/vim_use/ … 8a58ec9a9e

This explains all. You have to use a colorscheme made for both, gvim and vim.

I tried zellner scheme with white background in sakura virtual terminal and the colors are matching.

If your virtual terminal supports 256 colors you can set in vim: set t_Co=256 for better results.

Pity that oceanblack scheme is just for gvim.

Well, will just continue using gvim.

Last edited by ArchArael (2008-08-30 11:35:30)

peets · 2008-08-30 13:39:33

I used vim exclusively up to yesterday. For some reason when I resize a terminal emulator window, the vim instance running in it goes crazy: things are not aligned anymore, display is messed up, etc. Gvim doesn't seem to have these problems, and there's more flexibility with fonts and colours.

bwalk · 2008-08-30 20:09:56

For all you gui-haters. Just use

if has('gui_running')
    set guioptions-=T
    set guioptions+=g
    set guioptions-=t
    set guioptions-=m
    set guioptions-=L
    set guioptions-=l
    set guioptions-=r
    set guioptions-=R

You can't tell the difference from vim in rxvt-unicode.

For me, gvim if I want my editing window detached, vim if not. There is just no real difference.

eyolf · 2008-08-30 20:29:13

bwalk wrote:

For me, gvim if I want my editing window detached, vim if not. There is just no real difference.

Yes, there is one, which I find convenient enough to use gvim: the cursor. It's one of the things that may take some time getting used to with (g)vim: where things like yanks and puts happen in relation to the cursor. The thin-line variant in gvim in insert mode makes it somewhat easier.

I use vim most of the time, though.

PS: I know that one can use some termcap-like settings to change the color of the cursor also in vim, but I haven't been able to get that to work with vim in GNU screen.

ozar · 2008-08-30 20:30:29

I was never able to get comfortable with gvim so used vim instead, but now I'm using good ol' vi more than vim. This might be considered going in reverse by some, but like it that way, at least so far.

eyolf · 2008-08-30 21:34:42

peets wrote:

I used vim exclusively up to yesterday. For some reason when I resize a terminal emulator window, the vim instance running in it goes crazy: things are not aligned anymore, display is messed up, etc. Gvim doesn't seem to have these problems, and there's more flexibility with fonts and colours.

It's apparently a kernel bug: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=53516

ArchArael · 2008-08-30 23:39:59

ozar wrote:

I was never able to get comfortable with gvim so used vim instead, but now I'm using good ol' vi more than vim. This might be considered going in reverse by some, but like it that way, at least so far.

Interesting. Could you please tell me why is so? What do you do in vi, coding or just for configuration files changes?

I switched to openbox after years of gnome. I did it because I seen that I spent most of my time on gnome-terminal and didn't used much of other gnome stuff. Maybe just file-roller for previewing archive contents. For me was just natural choose something simpler...matter of feeling I guess.

Is it the same in your case considering your switching to vi over vim?

Last edited by ArchArael (2008-08-30 23:51:16)

N30N · 2008-08-31 12:01:38

I've always prefered vim and would recommend starting with it over the g(ui) version. With gvim your more likely to use the mouse for menus/dialogs (instead of learning the commands), tabs (instead of buffers), placing the cursor and scrolling (instead of learning jumps), etc, etc.

Regarding SSH you can always use the scp protocol in gvim.

skottish wrote:

Like I was spending more time figuring out how to get the things set up to my liking than I was actually editing.

Well get prepared for more, vim is one of the most customizable and irregular editors there is (but try to learn the vim way before imposing your own).

skottish wrote:

Obviously I need to pass some sort of parameter. Any advice?

I don't use pcmanfm but I would guess %s or %f.

elasticdog · 2008-09-01 20:07:30

I use both as well, but would say that gVim does have the definite cut/paste advantage, since it will automatically not cut/paste the line numbers, if you have those enabled. The colors and fonts are better, but that is more of a terminal setup issue than anything. Aside from that main point, they're pretty much interchangeable and I am probably in a screen session and terminal Vim more often than gVim.

N30N · 2008-09-02 07:23:41

elasticdog wrote:

gVim does have the definite cut/paste advantage, since it will automatically not cut/paste the line numbers, if you have those enabled.

This is a issue with screen try :set ttymouse=xterm

freakcode · 2008-09-03 01:38:29

gVim for programming gurus. Fonts and colors just feel nicer. Tabs and splitted windows with scrollbars work better too.

enrique · 2008-09-03 20:04:11

I currently use gVim exclusive, but I'm considering switching to vim in urxvt, because gVim feels slow. I'm a PHP developer so I often have a large amount of PHP files open (like right now: 40 files, some of them over 1000 lines) and scrolling feels slow, and omni-completion is almost unusable. This in on a 2.1Gzh Dual Core w. 2Gb and Intel X3100 gfx.

freakcode · 2008-09-03 22:36:28

enrique wrote:

I currently use gVim exclusive, but I'm considering switching to vim in urxvt, because gVim feels slow.

Interesting that you find gVim slow. I was used to using Vim on XTerm (nothing renders faster than this), and feel no difference for gVim. There's a .vimrc option that defines whether syntax highlighting should be redone for the whole document every input or not, maybe this impacts performance.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-29 19:35:29

Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#2 2008-08-29 20:56:29

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#3 2008-08-29 21:03:59

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#4 2008-08-29 21:35:10

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#5 2008-08-29 21:38:59

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#6 2008-08-29 22:15:41

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#7 2008-08-29 22:32:55

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#8 2008-08-29 23:11:59

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#9 2008-08-29 23:40:43

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#10 2008-08-29 23:53:46

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#11 2008-08-30 00:21:54

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#12 2008-08-30 07:09:20

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#13 2008-08-30 10:12:04

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#14 2008-08-30 13:39:33

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#15 2008-08-30 20:09:56

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#16 2008-08-30 20:29:13

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#17 2008-08-30 20:30:29

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#18 2008-08-30 21:34:42

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#19 2008-08-30 23:39:59

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#20 2008-08-31 12:01:38

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#21 2008-09-01 20:07:30

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#22 2008-09-02 07:23:41

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#23 2008-09-03 01:38:29

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#24 2008-09-03 20:04:11

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

#25 2008-09-03 22:36:28

Re: Opinions on gVim as opposed to just Vim

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