VIM on Windows

I have done with the slowness of cygwin git and switch to git-for-windows. Unfortunately, vim on cygwin doesn’t work well with git-for-windows per various path problems (e.g. plugin, path delimiters, etc). Here are some notes for tweaking vim on Windows.

0. .vim or vimfiles Directories?
   Later one is used on Windows, however, many plugin or your scripts may refer the previous one. Thus, mklink it! i.e. .vim <==> vimfiles.

1. VIM with Python Support
   Official vim81 compiles vim.exe without python support and gvim.exe with python/dyn (verify that with gvim --version). Thus, Python support is only avail as of gvim.exe per official packages.
   Assume python.exe and python27.dll was installed in C:\Python\bin
   Add following environment variables

   PYTHONHOME=C:\Python\bin
   PATH=%PATH%;%PYTHONHOME%
   

   For :h pythonhome and :h pythondll .
   Verify above settings with :python print ''.

2. Color Scheme
   gvim requires true color to apply color scheme correctly. Convert your cterm scheme with this script (not mine work).
   Place scheme files in %HOME%\vimfiles\color. Windows equivalent of $HOME\.vim on Unix. Note that %HOME%\.vimrc still works.

3. gtags
   Jason Hood provides wonderful pre-built gtags for Windows. Download and unzip it. Then add its bin directory to your %PATH%.

4. gvim specific settings
   Place them in .gvimrc

   set guifont=Consolas:h10:cANSI
   " (not really) maximize window at start
   set lines=999 columns=999
   

Written with StackEdit.