Modern Vim

Chapter 7Configuring Vim

You can configure Vim by setting options in your vimrc file. This file is sourced when Vim starts up, so any options you set there will be applied each time you launch Vim. This mechanism works fine for setting global options—the settings you want to apply throughout Vim. But sometimes you need to tweak your settings for different contexts. Perhaps you want to customize a setting one way for JavaScript files and another way for JSON files. Perhaps your personal preference is to always use two spaces for indentation, but you collaborate on some projects where tabs are preferred. In this chapter, you’ll discover a few different mechanisms you can use for applying settings in a particular context.