![]() Home Features Screenshots Keyboard Shortcuts License FAQ Installation Spell Check Other Files Goals Background Why I Love Vim Why I Hate Vim ToDo List ChangeLog Mail List Links Vim Contribute
|
Creamfor Vim... it takes the bitterness out!
Vim is one of the most powerful, lightweight and full-featured text editors ever. It is the most famous descendant of the Vi text editor written in 1976. Vim is also free, and it works on most operating systems including Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Unix, BSD, Apple, Amiga, OS/2... even on some PDAs. So why wouldn't everyone want use Vim if it's free and so terrific?
Vim has a very steep learning curve. It was never primarily designed to be easy to use, favoring performance and technical flexibility instead. So if you're used to text editors like most found on Apple or Microsoft platforms, retraining yourself to use Vim will require a considerable time investment. For example, Vim uses a default modal operation, which means that keyboard shortcuts do different things depending on the mode. Long time Vim users often insist on so many options, but most Apple or Microsoft platform users find this much flexibility overwhelming. So Cream, in this particular example, makes all functionality available from a single editing mode (technically called insertmode), accessible with familiar keyboard shortcuts and pull-down menus.
For those of you unfamiliar to Vim, we hope that you find the Cream configuration to be what what you would expect in a text editor. It's long list of features describe a number of default extensions all available from common pull-down menus, including spell check, multiple file find/replace, bookmarking, macros, capitalization, file explorer, completion, sorting, a calendar, tag navigation, block commenting and a huge and growing list of both powerful and subtle improvements over Vim. If you are already familiar with Vim, you'll notice that Cream significantly changes its behavior. Considerable effort has gone into insertmode usability, with settings retained across sessions to eliminate manual edits and exports of configuration files. You'll also find an enormous number of terrific custom Vim extensions by some notable authors included and configured by default, and an extendable add-on architecture to map virtually unlimited custom functions beyond those provided. Please read about the project's goals for a bird's eye view and background to learn the more philosophical motivations of the project. Then see how to contribute if you're interested in helping out!
|