Hi all, In my search for a Vim-like editor with strong Slime integration, I have looked at the Viper mode of Emacs. If you don't like Emacs for religious or other reasons, you should stop reading now :) If the only reason you don't like Emacs is because of the key bindings, well read on! Now, I am possibly the most stubborn Vim bigot - I've put a LOT of effort into alternatives like Slim-vim and Vial. So if I can come over to the dark side, you ought to maybe have a look :)
I started with Viper mode and added various features to make it more Vim-like. The notable features I've added are ;;;;;;;;; NEW FEATURES ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Point movement features, gg ; Scrolling features, zt zb zz ; Search for word features, * # ; Tags support, C-] and C-t ; Undo/redo, u C-r ; Window manipulation, C-wC-w, C-wo, C-wc ; Expand abbreviation, C-n ; Visual mode commands, v, o, O, d, y, c ; New Ex features: ; - split, vsplit, bdelete, bn
Some/most of them are somewhat rough, but they work.
I've only tested on Aquamacs, but I know that if you use vanilla GNU Emacs you will need to download and install redo.el (http://www.wonderworks.com/download/redo.el). I think Xemacs will work.
I've also created more Vim like bindings for the Slime interface. Check out the slime-mappings.el file for the full list, but generally they match regular Slime mappings without the C-c prefix. For example: C-c C-k : slime-compile-and-load-file : (vip-slime-leader k) C-c M-k : slime-compile-file : (vip-slime-leader K) vip-slime-leader is a character that you can define - it defaults to SPACE
The mappings are in a directory called extended-viper, I rename it to ~/.extended-viper. You can get it via Darcs by: darcs get http://common-lisp.net/project/vial/darcs/extended-viper
One of the main things that does not work is C-c to exit insert mode. I have personally remapped this to C-g (I type Dvorak and it is right next to "c"). I strongly recommend using C-g as the abort key because it is the default to abort Emacs commands and minibuffer entries. I have also found it beneficial to give up _some_ of the keybinding bigotry :) For example C-h is a great way to get help. Single chorded keys for infrequently used commands is not a bad thing.
At the minimum you'll need to add: (setq viper-mode t) (require 'viper) to your .emacs file. And rename the viper-example file to ~/.viper.
Feed back and patches more than welcome.
Cheers Brad
--- My .emacs file ---- (setq inferior-lisp-program "/opt/local/bin/sbcl") (add-to-list 'load-path "/Users/brad/development/lisp/packages/slime") (require 'slime) (slime-setup)
(setq viper-mode t) (require 'viper) (custom-set-variables ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it! ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance. '(case-fold-search t) '(current-language-environment "Latin-1") '(default-input-method "latin-1-prefix") '(global-font-lock-mode t nil (font-lock)) '(viper-syntax-preference (quote emacs))) (custom-set-faces ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it! ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance. )
(tool-bar-mode -1) ; hide the tool bar (setq scroll-step 1) ; smooth scrolling
; Brad's Viper changes ; Dvorak mappings for movement (define-key viper-vi-global-user-map "h" 'viper-next-line) (define-key viper-vi-global-user-map "t" 'viper-previous-line) (define-key viper-vi-global-user-map "j" 'viper-backward-char) (define-key viper-vi-global-user-map "k" 'viper-forward-char) (define-key viper-vi-global-user-map " d" 'viper-kill-current-buffer)
(setq viper-auto-indent t)
; Let ^H work as help (setq viper-want-ctl-h-help t)
; I normally use ^C to exit insert mode in Vim, since ^C is used by Emacs so ; much, I'll use the nearest key to it on a Dvorak keyboard. Handily it is also ; the quit key for minibuffer commands (define-key viper-insert-global-user-map "\C-g" 'viper-intercept-ESC-key)