I have been using VIM on different types of architectures : under Sun/Solaris/*sh, under a PC/WindowsNT/zsh, under a PC/WindowsMillenium/ + Cygwin, under a PC/WindowsXP/ + Cygwin, and under a GNU/Linux Debian box.

Instead of managing a .vimrc and a _vimrc file, they both are very short and source a common file : vimrc_core.vim

My tree file

On my hard drives, I have VIM 6.3, and I used to have VIM 5.7. Hence I have isolated some stuff really common to both versions in my $VIM/, move VIM 5.7 stuff to $VIM/vim57/ and put VIM 6.x specific stuff into $HOME/vimfiles/ (or what stands for it ; check «:h 'runtimepath'»).

This looks like this :

 $VIM/
  +--> plugin/        # plugins common to both versions of VIM
  +--> macros/        # macros common to both versions of VIM
  +--> vim57/         # initial $VIMRUNTIME for VIM 5.7
  |    +--> ftplugin/ # used to be my settings/ folder
  |    +--> ...       # default installation
  +--> vim63/         # initial $VIMRUNTIME for VIM 6.3
  |    +--> ...       # default installation
  +--> vimrc_core.vim # I reckon it has nothing to do here
  +--> _vimrc_nix/win # special initialisations for *NIX / Ms-Windows
  +--> _gvimrc

 $HOME/vimfiles/      # personnal stuff for VIM 6.x
  +--> ...            # default hierarchy, filled with my scripts

The files

_vimrc <raw file> 9th  October  2002	Example of a very succinct .vimrc file.
vimrc_core.vim <raw file> 17th  June  2004 help on : <S-F1>	The main file that contains all the mappings. It relies on two plugins : runtime.vim : required!, and help.vim : facultative. more info...
_vimrc_nix <raw file> 9th  October  2002	Some customizations for *NIX environments ; mainly keycodes remappings for my putty terminal.
_vimrc_win <raw file> 17th  June  2004	Some customizations for Ms-Windows environments.
_gvimrc <raw file> 17th  June  2004	Some stuff to load only when GUI is enabled.
myfiletypes.vim <raw file> 15th  March  2002	Some custom filetypes.
cyg-wrapper.sh	This shell script combined, with the alias: alias gvim='cyg-wrapper.sh "C:/Progra~1/Edition/vim/vim63/gvim.exe" -c' , wraps VIM calls when the current *NIX environement is cygwin -- and the VIM version: a plain win32 executable like the default release for windows systems, or the one available on Cream web site. Indeed, cygwin is strictly unable to send correct (i.e. PC-ish) path names to VIM. If you have ever tried to type "gvim /etc/profile" or "gvim file-that-is-a-sym-link" from cygwin/bash, then I'm sure you see what I mean and why you definitively need this shell script.

Some more explanations

vimrc_core.vim corresponds to my .vimrc. I gave it another name in order to keep my .vimrc and _vimrc short and always uptodate.

It sources _vimrc_nix or _vimrc_win regarding the current environnement.

I will not detail every mapping or abbreviation defined, they are very classical. Actually many are not mine at all and come from the Sven Guckes's .vimrc. If you want a short description of the definitions, source the file and then hit <S-F1> (if you have installed help.vim).

But it also contains many initialisations used for different (ft)plugins I use :

• Runtime.vim (:runtime extended to VIM 5.x) & runtimepath personal configuration.
• Help.vim facultative
• EnhanceCommentify.vim
• brkt_select_empty_marks
• g:Author
• Abbréviations pour le français
• let-modelines
• Triggers.vim
• Folder, Johannes Zellner's way

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hermitte at free.fr