10 minutes to SpaceVim

中文版本

The main purpose of this tutorial is quickly introducing spacevim to new beginners. Also, for old vimer, it won't hurt to try, you can easily and safely get back to your original vim if you don't like spacevim.

Just need 10 minutes, have a try!!

Table of Content

• First Step: Install or Uninstall
• Second Step: Basic idea
• Third Step: Getting start!
• Fourth Step: Explore and customize
• Reference

First Step: Install or Uninstall

1. Install spacevim (Linux && macOS, for windows), it won't delete your original vim.

curl -sLf https://spacevim.org/install.sh | bash

Then, get start!

vim

The first time you type vim, it will take few minutes to install plugins.

2. Uninstall spacevim and get back to your original vim!

curl -sLf https://spacevim.org/install.sh | bash -s -- --uninstall

3. Use both of your original vim and spacevim

See FAQ:Have a try with SpaceVim without overwrite vimrc?

How it works?

Actually it just change the name for ~/.vim to ~/.vim_back, for more information about install script, type curl -sLf https://spacevim.org/install.sh | bash -s -- -h

Strong Suggestion:

Update your vim to neovim(generally speaking, neovim is better) or vim8.0 to get better experience of spacevim.

Second Step: Basic idea

There are many shortcuts key in SpaceVim, the most frequently used shortcut keys are often starting with Space key, I guess that's why we call it SpaceVim. For convenience, when we mention spc, it means the Space key on keyboard.

1. Shortcuts

There are different kinds of shortcuts, start with different prefix:

Prefix	Prefix name	Example	Description	More info
space	[SPC]	spc f t	open/close filetree	just press space key and wait 1s
s	[WIN]	s v	split window, equal to :split	link
\	<Leader>	\ [0-9]	jump to other tab or buffer	just press \ key and wait 1s
g	go to	g 0	go to first tab	link
z	fold	z a	toggle a fold	link

Just press the button spc, wait 1 second, you will see useful hint to shortcuts, explore by yourself.

2. Key Conceptions

Name	Description
Window	A window can split into more windows
Buffer	A buffer is a file loaded into memory for editing
Tab/Frame	A tab could contain different file
Tagbar	Display tags of current file
Filetree	File browser

For new beginners to vim

Still confusing about how to use vim? Type vimtutor in your terminal, it will open a vim tutorial, you just need half an hour to master basic skills of vim.

For old vimer

As you could see above, spacevim's shortcuts are confict with origin vim's shortcuts such as shortcuts start with s and g, if you want to use origin vim key bindings, you can enable vimcompatible mode, add below code to ~/.SpaceVim.d/init.toml

[options]
  vimcompatible = true

For more infomation about vim compatible mode, see vimCompatible mode if you just want to disable specific shortcut.

Spacevim's default file tree plugin is vimfiler, for those who used to using nerdtree plugin to explore file, set

[options]
  filemanager = "nerdtree"

Third Step: Getting start!

1. The most frequently used shortcuts

Don't be scare by these many shortcuts, actually they are easy to remember and it will help you a lot eventually.

Be carefully, if you use vim compatible mode, in vim normal mode, the following shortcuts starts with s and q won't work.

Shortcuts	Description
Basic
h j k l	move around
spc	wait 1 second to get hint for more shortcuts
<F3> / spc f t	trigger file tree
spc t t	Open tab manager
F2	Open tagbar
<Leader> [1-9]	switch to different tabs or buffers
spc [1-9]	switch to different windows
ctrl j/h/k/l	switch to different windows
Filetree	Link
spc f o	open file tree and locate to current directory
s g	open file and split window horizontally
s v	open file split window vertically
Comment code	Link
spc c l	comment/uncomment current line
spc c p/P	comment/uncomment current paragraph
spc ; [num] j	comment num lines
Tab Manager	Link
spc t t	open tab manager
spc w F	open a new tab, equal to spc t t + n
spc w o	switch tab
Display	Link
spc s c	clear search highlight
SPC t 8	highlight any character past the 80th column
SPC t h h	toggle highlight of the current line
SPC t h c	toggle highlight indentation current column
Search	Link
spc s s	Searching in current file
spc s d	Searching in current directory
spc s b	Searching in all loaded buffers
spc s p	Searching in current proj, equal to spc /
Useful shortcuts	Link
[ spc	insert space above
] spc	insert space below

In the list above, I only listed shortcuts I use the most. The best way to explore shortcuts is just press the Space bar in the spacevim, wait a second, you will see a prompt window, try all kinds of shortcuts by yourself!

2. Advanced setting

(1) Programming language support

Use spacevim as a specific language IDE, take python for example. for other programming language, please view SpaceVim layers

Add following snippet to .SpaceVim.d/init.toml

[[layers]]
  name = "lang#python"

Install dependencies

pip install --user flake8 yapf autoflake isort

• flake8 : for syntax checking feature
• yapf : for formatting code
• autoflake : for uppress unused imports
• isort : for sort your imports

Shortcuts	Description
g d	Go to function definition
spc b f	format code according to pep8 standard
spc l g d	generate docstring
spc l s i	open ipython
spc l r	run python code

(2) Fuzzy finder

See Fuzzy finder. For example, we use unite as a fuzzy finder, to enable it, add following snippet to .SpaceVim.d/init.toml

[[layers]]
  name = "unite"

and in terminal

sudo apt-get install silversearcher-ag

Then disable ctrl-s in linux terminal , stick stty -ixon in a startup script(~/.bashrc).

Finally, in spacevim type, you can fuzzy search file in current directory now!

spc f f

Shortcuts	Description
<Tab> / Ctrl-j	Select next line
Shift-Tab / Ctrl-k	Select previous line
j k	Leave Insert mode (Only for denite/unite)
Ctrl-w	Delete backward path
<Enter>	Run default action
Ctrl-s	Open in a split
Ctrl-v	Open in a vertical split
Ctrl-t	Open in a new tab
Ctrl-g	Exit unite

Fourth Step: Explore and customize

1. Customize

(1) Config ~/.SpaceVim.d/init.toml

You may want to set default_indent to 4, edit ~/.SpaceVim.d/init.toml

[options]
  default_indent = 4

Actually it is equivalent to set ~/.SpaceVim/autoload/SpaceVim.vim to:

    let g:spacevim_default_indent = 4

Two way are the same except the second way need prefix let g:spacevim_

All SpaceVim options can be found in :h SpaceVim-config or the file ~/.SpaceVim/autoload/SpaceVim.vim

(2) Add your own vim script: bootstrap-functions

Example of how to use bootstrap-functions

if you want to set wrap (automatic line breaking) every time you open SpaceVim, first, add a newfile .SpaceVim.d/autoload/myspacevim.vim which contains:

func! myspacevim#before() abort
  set wrap
endf

add below code to ~/.SpaceVim.d/init.toml

[options]
  bootstrap_before = "myspacevim#before"

Replace before to after if you want your function being called after the loading of SpaceVim’s main scripts

(OK, I know it's a bit inconvenient.)

(3) Change your colorschemes

2. Explore

1. Learn more about SpaceVim, please view Official document
2. Get more useful tool for your spacevim Available layers
3. Check FAQ first if you have any problem Frequently asked questions FAQ

3. More

1. Update SpaceVim :SPUpdate
2. SpaceVim debug info SPDebugInfo! or spc h I, this is useful if you want to report bugs or open a github issue

Reference

1. Spacevim tutorial (writen in Chinese)
2. Hack-SpaceVim