For Vim version 5.0p. Last modification: 1997 Oct 04
VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar
Vim's Graphical User Interface
1. Starting the GUI |gui-w32-start|
2. Using the clipboard |gui-clipboard|
3. Shell Commands |gui-shell-win32|
4. Special colors |win32-colors|
5. Compiling |gui-w32-compiling|
Other relevant documentation:
|gui.txt| For generic items of the GUI.
|os_win32.txt| For Win32 specific items.
{Vi does not have any of these commands}
1. Starting the GUI
The Win32 GUI version of Vim will always start the GUI, no matter how you
start it or what it's called.
The GUI will always run in the Windows subsystem. Mostly shells automatically
return with a command prompt after starting gvim. If not, you should use the
"start" command:
> start gvim file
Note: All fonts must be of the same size!!! If you don't do this, text will
disappear or mess up the display. Vim does not check the font sizes. It's
the size in screen pixels that must be the same. Note that some fonts that
have the same point size don't have the same pixel size! Additionally, the
positioning of the fonts must be the same (ascent and descent). You can check
this with "xlsfonts -l <fontname>".
Setting the menu height doesn't work for the Win32 GUI.
2. Using the clipboard
Windows has a clipboard, where you can copy text to, and paste text from. Vim
supports this in several ways.
TODO.
3. Shell Commands
WARNING: Executing an external command happens in a separate window. If you
close this window with the "X" button, Vim may be killed too!
Vim uses another window for external commands, to make it possible to run any
command. The external command gets its own environment for running, just like
it was started from a DOS prompt.
TODO
4. Special colors
On Win32, the system configured colors can also be used. These are known by
the names Sys_XXX, where XXX is the appropriate system color name, from the
following list (see the Win32 documentation for full descriptions):
3DDKSHADOW 3DFACE BTNFACE
3DHILIGHT 3DHIGHLIGHT BTNHILIGHT
BTNHIGHLIGHT 3DLIGHT 3DSHADOW
BTNSHADOW ACTIVEBORDER ACTIVECAPTION
APPWORKSPACE BACKGROUND DESKTOP
BTNTEXT CAPTIONTEXT GRAYTEXT
HIGHLIGHT HIGHLIGHTTEXT INACTIVEBORDER
INACTIVECAPTION INACTIVECAPTIONTEXT INFOBK
INFOTEXT MENU MENUTEXT
SCROLLBAR WINDOW WINDOWFRAME
WINDOWTEXT
Probably the most useful values are
Sys_Window Normal window background
Sys_WindowText Normal window text
Sys_Highlight Highlighted background
Sys_HighlightText Highlighted text
Additionally, colors defined by a "rgb.txt" file can be used. This file is
well known from X11. A few lines from it:
> 255 218 185 peach puff
> 205 133 63 peru
> 255 181 197 pink
This shows the layout of the file: First the R, G and B value as a decimal
number, followed by the name of the color. The four fields are separated by
spaces.
You can get an rgb.txt file from any X11 distribution. It is located in a
directory like "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/". For Vim it must be located in the $VIM
directory. Thus the file can be found with "$VIM/rgb.txt".
5. Compiling
Vim can be compiled with Micrsoft Visual C++ version 4.0 or later, and Borland
C++ version 4.5 or later. Other compilers might work too, but you will have
to make your own project or Makefile.
TODO
Generated by vim2html on Mon Nov 3 03:34:24 EST 1997