Questions tagged [help-system]
Questions about Vim's built-in help system, which is accessible through the :help command
91
questions
3
votes
1
answer
120
views
When was getcharstr() introduced? And how could I have found the answer my self from :help?
Yesterday I made a change to my plugin which essentially consisted in using getcharstr() instead of nr2char(getchar()).
That was Vim 8.2.4106.
Today at work I updated my plugin and got an error, ...
- 1,572
7
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Why is Vim9 mentioned at all in the doc of Vim 8?
Looking for lambda in the doc, I've found out (to my surprise) that they do exist in vimscript, and they use the syntax {args -> expr1}.
But I've also discovered that there's Vim9, the doc of which ...
- 1,572
2
votes
2
answers
157
views
Complete list of all VIM commands
I know the title should have been "God can you share all the knowledge in the Universe please ?"
But anyway it doesn't hurt if I ask...
Is there any compiled complete list of all VIM ...
- 219
0
votes
0
answers
14
views
":h command" doesn't work with some commads. How to deal with such cases? [duplicate]
When it comes to some commands, getting help is hard. For example, the display command.
I know I can use, for example, set display=truncate or set display=lastline, but when I use :h display to read ...
- 77
0
votes
1
answer
21
views
Need an explaination for CTRL-A help doc , "... or alphabetic character"
CTRL-A Add [count] to the number or alphabetic character at
or after the cursor.
CTRL-X Subtract [count] from the number or alphabetic
character at or after ...
- 1
3
votes
2
answers
387
views
On string concatenation, what's the difference between . and .. (single dot and double dot)?
From the :execute help (:h :exe):
*:exe* *:execute*
:exe[cute] {expr1} .. Executes the string that results from the evaluation
of {expr1} as an Ex command.
...
0
votes
1
answer
81
views
Make Line Numbers Appear in Documentation
I have set number in my init.vim (I am using neovim) and it works fine for any buffers I'm editing. However, I have to enter :set number into the command line to make line numbers appear in the ...
- 125
0
votes
0
answers
43
views
Disabling Help menu in ubuntu vi
There have been many postings on this issue but none have worked for me. I'm running vim 8.2 on linux ubuntu 20.04, which maybe why some of the postings haven't worked. Like many, I'd like to ...
- 625
0
votes
1
answer
42
views
What are the E tags in vim help?
I've been browsing vim's help and noticed there are some topics which have multiple E### tags and others with just a single E### tag. I'm curious as to what the significance of these E### tags are. My ...
- 65
0
votes
1
answer
22
views
"auto-complete" normal mode command?
Once I press g (or anything that enters operator pending mode), is there a way to see what keys could follow (e.g. gf, ga etc)?
Alternatively, is there a way to search builtin + mapped keys by regex? ...
- 325
4
votes
1
answer
91
views
Buffers that are neither active nor hidden
Both :ls and :buffers display a list with buffer information, giving indicators for each buffer. For example, # means the alternate buffer, and % means the current buffer. The meaning of each ...
- 255
1
vote
1
answer
52
views
What exactly Ctrl + Shift + Right arrow does? How can I remap it or find help on this key combination?
I've noticed that pressing Ctrl+ Shift+ Right deletes text until some criteria are met but I can't figure out exactly what that is.
I'm also unsure how to find help when a character doesn't have a ...
- 123
0
votes
2
answers
62
views
Automatically resize window based on filetype
I have a nifty autocommand in my vimrc that automatically maximizes any :help window:
augroup LargeHelpWindow
autocmd!
autocmd BufWinEnter * if &l:buftype ==# 'help' | wincmd _ | endif
...
- 255
0
votes
1
answer
26
views
Prevent help page folds from being lost
When I open a help page, create a manual fold, set bufhidden=hide and buflisted, then navigate away from that page, the fold is not restored upon returning.
$ vim -u NONE
:help
" create a manual ...
- 432
0
votes
0
answers
42
views
Why some shortcuts aren't listed on index.txt ? Is there a complete list?
The file index.txt is claiming to be a list of all commands,
but some keyboard shortcuts are listed on other files and not here.
And sometimes, the definition is a bit different in other files.
Are ...
- 221
2
votes
1
answer
249
views
Is it safe to define more than 120 signs?
I am working on a plugin that could potentially define more than 120 different signs. The vim / neovim documentation specifies that you can define about 120 signs (not sure why this number and why so ...
- 235
0
votes
0
answers
74
views
How to find next match by ":help"?
For example, you are using "mattn/emmet.vim", and command :help todo, it shows emmet-todo. Not vim side's todo.
I'd like to find vim side's todo, but can't go to next match... how can I go ...
- 11
0
votes
0
answers
81
views
CTRL-] keys not working with very specific tags
So, I'm trying to use vim's help tags in my notes files, so that i can easily reach them (without using ex command or making a new keymapping).
For that, i used:
set tags=$VIMRUNTIME/doc/tags
to set ...
- 563
1
vote
1
answer
31
views
Single page version of docs
I would like to read the Vim user guide and reference docs and man pages on my Kindle Paperwhite. Does anyone know of a single page web readable version of the docs? Or even a PDF?
Https://vim.help is ...
- 123
2
votes
1
answer
58
views
How to add translated help to vim?
I have vim 8.1 installed.
I want to use the help files translated into french.
The debian package vimhelp-fr is not maintained any more, the compressed tar is unavailable, so I installed the version 6....
- 123
1
vote
1
answer
45
views
Where is vim man-page online and within vim help? (e.g., in vimhelp.org, and from :help)
Q1: Where can I find the vim man page online? (an up-to-date version)
Q2: Where can I find the vim man page within the vim help system? (i.e., :help)
http://vimhelp.org looks like the canonical up-to-...
- 343
3
votes
1
answer
403
views
How to list all help subjects and help files?
Q1: How can I list all vim help subjects (topics)?
i.e., the {subject} argument for :h[elp] {subject}
Q2: How can I list all vim help files?
My particular use case is that I want to see help for my ...
- 343
2
votes
1
answer
34
views
Where is the help function defined or located?
I'm trying to find where the help function/command is defined.
So far I tried:
:verbose function help
but since the h isn't in uppercase, it doesn't work (not sure if it's even a function at this ...
- 563
0
votes
1
answer
83
views
How to cycle through all "tags" matching `:h {subject}`?
Suppose :h {subject} results in multiple matches for the tag {subject}.
The :h entry says that the "best" match will be used, which is not very useful, If I don't know exactly what to search ...
- 995
1
vote
1
answer
54
views
How to search for documentation on an option which is also a vim command argument? [duplicate]
When a Vim option is also a Vim command argument, :help opens the command argument help page. How can I direct :help to get the option page?
For example, trying :help verbose opens the -V verbose ...
- 111
4
votes
0
answers
43
views
Convert VIM doc (vim help) to Markdown or vice versa [duplicate]
Suppose you are writing a vim plugin hosted on Github (which seems to be a standard for now). You don't want to maintain two help files: README.md (Markdown) and doc/your_plugin.txt (vim help) with ...
- 223
0
votes
1
answer
64
views
Help navigating help files
In the case below, how would I find what the definition of [cmd] or [range] or {pattern} is ?
I have tried CTRL-] with my cursor on these, but this does not do anything.
- 379
3
votes
2
answers
905
views
`:help` returns an “E432: Tags file not sorted” error
I am attempting to use to the :help command in Neovim however the following error is returned:
E432: Tags file not sorted: /Users/seeker/.config/nvim/plugged/nerdtree/doc/tags
E432: Tags file not ...
- 165
2
votes
2
answers
170
views
:help - is there something like apropos?
A very helpful comment led me to investigate :help mode-switching where after typing :help mode I used autocomplete to explore which additional help topics contained mode.
This was a very large ...
- 1,175
1
vote
1
answer
125
views
How to show the name of a help buffer in the tabline of the airline?
I use :h command to open a help buffer. When I switch to other buffers, I can't go back to the opened help buffer. How can I show the name of a help buffer in the tabline of the airline?
- 11
2
votes
2
answers
418
views
Can the temp gzip decompression location for the integrated help documents be changed from /tmp?
Is it possible to configure vi to use a different location, say my home directory, for the uncompressed help files (or maybe to open them in RO if that's the problem)?
When attempting to open a help ...
- 121
11
votes
2
answers
2k
views
What does `idem` mean in the VIM docs?
One example would be in the List docs:
:unlet list[3] "idem
- 213
2
votes
1
answer
97
views
help {subject} path precedence
:h {subject} reads
If there is no full match for the pattern, or there
are several matches, the "best" match will be used.
A sophisticated algorithm is used to decide which
match is better than ...
- 275
3
votes
2
answers
458
views
Why are helptags not shipped with plugins?
Part of the job performed by virtually all plugin managers in Vim is to create helptags, which will index the help files shipped with the plugins and will allow searching for commands and mappings ...
- 25.5k
1
vote
0
answers
56
views
Ctrl-] matching single word in custom tags
When using vim's help I can jump to multi-word tags, but when creating my own tags Ctrl-] tries to match individual words. Consider the following example:
file.txt
|a-tag|
*a-tag*
When ...
0
votes
0
answers
100
views
How do I create the help system for Vim?
I built Vim from source and unfortunately when doing this the help system is not created (in other words you get an error if you execute :h). What is the procedure for creating the help system?
This ...
- 1,825
0
votes
0
answers
105
views
BufRead autocmd error for "*.*" and E45
I have vim version 7.4.1689. It was running quite smoothly. But recently I noticed a problem that I didn't have before. Whenever I run :help <something> in command mode the following error shows ...
- 522
0
votes
0
answers
57
views
install / repair help system
I built vim from source on Arch Linux and the help system is not present. I do not see any help-related options when I do vim --version.
I assume it is either broken somehow or not installed. How can ...
- 1,825
0
votes
2
answers
41
views
How to go to different matching entry in vim's help [duplicate]
Example: I tried finding out about foldclose because it sounded strange to me that it isn't a binary setting but still only knows the value "all". I typed :h foldclose and landed on a description of ...
- 464
1
vote
1
answer
184
views
Best practices and tools for documenting vimscript functions?
I have quickly skimmed through :h user-functions and a couple random vim plugins and all I could find were patterns like
" one-line short function description
function foo()
<function body here&...
- 277
0
votes
2
answers
214
views
Help for filetype specifics
I often find myself jotting notes in Vim using an empty buffer which in this case has 'no ft' (status line).
I know I could set the filetype with :setfiletype text but I honestly wonder what that ...
- 353
18
votes
1
answer
8k
views
Generating help tags for packages that are loaded by Vim 8's package management
I have a few packages installed in my ~/.vim/pack/default/start directory, for example Tabular and Unicode. After starting up vim I can use these packages but cannot access their help information. ...
- 299
0
votes
0
answers
138
views
How to create man-pages and link them like in vim help system?
I would like to create documentation just like vim-help system . Multiple .txt files with links and cross references and where I can jump foreward CTRL+] and back using CTRL+T. How is it done?
- 709
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votes
2
answers
139
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Where are the French help files?
Background: I'm an english-speaking, francophone student. In an effort to improve my vocabulary, my MacBook has been running in French since January, when I arrived in France. Incidentally, this means ...
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0
votes
2
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120
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How do you get help with operators?
How can I get help on operators as opposed to normal mode commands? For example, if I type the following:
:h .
Then I will get the help on the normal mode dot command, not on the string ...
- 1,825
2
votes
1
answer
212
views
Helptags has unexpected behavior if tag has hyphen
I'm creating a plugin and I'm writing its documentation according to :helptags. However I cannot link my tags if they have an hyphen in them. The strange thing is that help-writing itself has a hyphen ...
- 61
1
vote
2
answers
825
views
vimscript: get result of cmdline-completion Ctrl-a
Need a function that,
returns a string, which is result of cmdline-completion Ctrl-a, i.e.,
a list of words seperated by space.
given an input string of partial ex-command.
For example,
given :h ...
- 881
-5
votes
1
answer
147
views
What is the command for indenting code in vim with syntastic plugin? [closed]
I need to know how to reindent the code with syntastic.
I have tried using:
:call Retab() ## it is showing it's invalid
:call GetPythonIndent(v:lnum)
I need a plugin support.Plz don't provide ...
2
votes
2
answers
768
views
Piping to vim vs vim -
When I pipe text to vim I discovered that by using:
cat somefile | vim -
it works properly, whereas:
cat somefile | vim
makes a mess of the code. For example, type:
cat test.pl | vim
where test....
user859
7
votes
1
answer
955
views
Plugin help files not found
I am on windows 10 and installed pathogen into home/vimfiles/autoload, and as far as I know all went well. Following the directions here, I installed nerdcommenter. I restarted gvim, tried :help ...
- 185