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Comment by Aardwolf | Hacker News Reader

Can vim do the following?

I'm editing some project with 10000 C++ files.

There is some C++ file I currently don't have open, say "palette.cpp" which is in a subdirectory "project/graphics/algorithms/color/".

Now I want to open palette.cpp without ever having to type, not even with tab autocompletion, that path.

IntelliJ (which I do use for C++ ;)) can do this easily: just press CTRL+R, then palette.cpp, ENTER, and there you are in that file.

Another thing: Some IDE's and editors have this feature where if you change lines, it marks it with some color on the left, as well as colors in the scrollbar, to immediately see which parts of the file were changed compared to git and/or the last time you opened it. Can Vim do this?

Thanks!

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The CtrlP plugin will make opening these files a breeze. If you just trigger it and type palette.cpp, it should be the first match.

Better, you can type palete.cpp and it should still be the first match.

with your cursor on a filename that is a legitimate relative path, you can just press 'gf' to open the file from command mode. there is also a mirrored command of '^xf' in insert mode. slightly different work flow...

^o and ^i get used a lot in conjunction with 'gf', and are also pretty handy in general.

1. It is done like this:

    :e **/palette.cpp<CR>

2. You can try http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3052 but I'm positive there are other implementations.

It seems "find" will do you what you need. Source: http://stackoverflow.com/a/3407288

Not sure if this helps but FuzzyFinder: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1984

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/a/573097

CtrlP takes care of that. Ctrl+P and then Ctrl+F (cycle to buffers list—you can also map this to anything you want) and it will list buffers with a + next to the buffers with local edits. Ctrl+D and it will change from full path to file name search. You can cycle between buffers, files, mru files and even more (tags, etc.) with extensions.

I've mapped Ctrl+T to open CtrlP in tag mode.

I do a large amount of my developing in vimdiff which, coupled with version control, does what you ask.

> Some IDE's and editors have this feature where if you change lines, it marks it with some color on the left, as well as colors in the scrollbar, to immediately see which parts of the file were changed compared to git and/or the last time you opened it.

This does that: https://github.com/airblade/vim-gitgutter

> if you change lines, it marks it with some color on the left

This is the feature that I miss the most in Vim, after working 5+ years in IDEs like Visual Studio. There are some Vim plugins addressing this (at least a year or so ago, when I searched), but nothing as elegant and seamless as in IDEs.

Most of the things of such kind are available as vim plugins (for the 'open file without path' thing, see e.g. http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=858) - you can then remap those new commands to keys/shortcuts.

re: git changes, after seeing such a plugin for sublime (https://github.com/jisaacks/GitGutter) I went ahead and implemented the same thing for Vim (https://bitbucket.org/sirpengi/iwilldiffer). The plugin is still in beta status yet with compatibility, and I should make it easier to install with the various plugin managers as well as make the feature async (right now, the UI blocks waiting on the diff command). But otherwise, I'm using it daily and it supports mercurial as well as git.

> IntelliJ (which I do use for C++ ;))

If I may ask, how do you use it? The C/C++ plugin was unusable, last time I tried it.

The C++ plugin is totally unusable and I uninstalled it immediately after trying.

But I just made a manual set of syntax highlighting rules for C++, and that's good enough for me.

The git integration and other IntelliJ features make up for the missing C++ navigation and refactoring features for me.

I do everything related to compiling, debugging, and stuff (as well as all git committing and stuff, the IntelliJ git integration is about showing changed lines) from a terminal.

I have vim as my EDITOR, then cscope does this and more.

Yes.

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