I have the following in my vimrc:
set sts=4
set et
This allows me to take advantage of the convenience of the tab key when editing while actually inserting spaces into the current buffer. Intuitively I've always wished I could shift-tab to unindent the current line one tab stop. After a minute of fiddling with my vimrc, I found a solution.
imap <S-Tab> <C-o><<
I should also mention that << and >> shifts the provided text based on your shiftwidth setting.
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9 comments:
Vim already has <C-t> and <C-d> in insert mode that change the indent level. Bonus: they work no matter where the cursor is on the line, just like doing <C-o>>> or <C-o><<.
Also, you should mention that Vim uses 'shiftwidth' for the number of spaces for each indent level.
I did not know about <C-t> and <C-d>. Thanks for pointing that out. I will update the tip to mention shiftwidth as well as that may not be obvious to some readers.
Great idea, I like the idea of using shift tab since, as you said, it seems more natural. When indenting large blocks I tend to use visual mode and > or < though.
These are pretty widely-used already, but I thought they were worth mentioning for anyone that wasn't already aware of them:
vmap <Tab> >gv
vmap <S-Tab> <gv
They provide indenting/unindenting for Visual selections using Tab and Shift+Tab. I use them all the time.
That's great!
i didn't realize ^O can take me out of insert for a sake of one command =)
(frankly, only because it never crossed my mind)
Bill, don't < and > achieve exactly the same thing in visual mode?
Douglas: The mappings I posted have a couple of advantages over < and >. For one thing, they work well in both Visual and Select modes, as opposed to just Visual mode. (Hitting < or > in Select mode overwrites the selection.)
The biggest advantage, though, is that they maintain the current selection after each keypress, so you can press Tab or Shift+Tab multiple times to adjust the indentation as much as you want, without having to reselect the block of text.
Please don't use 'sts'! Use 'smarttab' instead. 'sts' will use a mixture of tabs and spaces to indent your code, and guarantees that it looks like total arse on every editor everywhere.
Thanks for sharing this information because I know it could be useful for many people who don't know about this application.
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