Intro

exVim is a project to turn Vim into a nice programming environment. exVim introduce the project file concept (.exvim) in Vim. By editing this project file (.exvim) through Vim, the exVim plugins will be invoked. In this way, it makes you possible to apply different Vim settings, plugin settings and even loading plugins on demand by different projects. In general, it makes Vim become the best IDE in the world!

WHAT EVEN COOL IS --- WE USE EXVIM DEVELOP EXVIM! (\(-_-)/)

Features

• Manage your project with .exvim setting file.
• Update your project files by single command. (tags, cscope-db, search-index, makefile, ...)
• Project files stores in one place (in the folder ./.exvim.your_project_name/ under your project).
• Load Vim-plugin on demand for different projects based on your .exvim settings.
• Better management of plugin windows in Vim. (avoid multiple plugin windows mess up in Vim)
  
• Browse and operate your project files and folders in project window.
• Class, variable and function tags jumpping.
• Global search in project scope.
• Global search engine customization (user can choose grep, idutils even his own one)
• A powful way to filter your global search result.
• Generate classes hierarchy pictures.
• Enhanced quick-fix window.
• Popular Vim-plugin integrated.

How does it work?

Edit and saved your project settings in your_project_name.exvim, open it with Vim. In this way exVim will parse the the file and apply settings to your project after Vim started.

The settings include:

• The window layout of your Vim. (Where to open the plugin window, initial opened window, last time layout...)
• File and Folder filter.
• Plugin you wish to use in the project.
• Plugin settings for the project.
• External tools. Such as grep, idutils, ctags, cscope,...
• External tools settings for the project.
• Your extension settings.
• ...

exVim also make sure project files stores in one place ( in the folder ./.exvim.your_project_name/ under your project ). This makes your project clean and much better work with external tools. These project files can be:

• global search index and results (idutils)
• tags
• cscope files
• hierarchy graph pictures
• error message
• temporary files
• ...

After exVim started, type :Update command, exVim will helps you update project files.

How does it integrate Vim-plugins?

exVim aims to implement as much as possible of the functions and features in pure Vim language. We try to avoid reinvent the wheel. As a result, we carefully select and integrate popular Vim-plugins in the Vim community. But the exists Vim plugins can't fulfill our needs. For those features lack of and for those features we think we can do it better, we develop by ourself in put them in the exVim organization on GitHub.

Here is the standards we pick, patches and develop for a vim-plugin:

• Develop by pure Vim language
• Follow the unix philosophy: do one thing well
• Less dependencies
• High quality of the code and good performance
• Highly active community
• Can be installed with a variety of plugin managers, Vundle or pathogen. (Repo in GitHub, standard runtime path structure)

Read the Plugins to get the details of the plugins in exVim.