The Great "Hard Return" Debate

[Jonathan B. Bayer]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On Fri, 05 Nov 1999 17:57:18, David Gaskill wrote:

>I followed your instructions and VIM is now installed. Maybe you should rewrite some 
>of the readme files so that they can be understood by  mere mortals. For example the 
>installation instructions currently contain such magic spells  as: 

Thanks for the compliment.


>
>"Set the $VIM environment variable to point to the top directory of your Vim files.  For 
>the above example:
>  set VIM=dh0:editors/vim" 

Don't worry about this.


>The problem is that now I have got to find out how to make it do  the elegant the things 
>which Steve demonstrated and I have a horrid suspicion that this will prove to be 
>beyond me. Most of the help files seen to be aimed at the command line version rather 
>than the GUI version which I am using. 


Well, Steve helped me with that.  With his permission (he doesn't know
it yet :-), here is some of the things to do to make it do the magic
things he talks about.

In the main VIM directory, find a file called  _vimrc

Then edit that file and add the following text to the end of file file:

- -----Insert text below this line-----
augroup mailnews
  " remove all mailnews autocommands
  au!

  " sane settings for mail and news.
  autocmd BufRead *.followup set formatoptions=tcqr noautoindent tabstop=3 wrap textwidth=
78
  autocmd BufRead *.article set formatoptions=tcqr noautoindent tabstop=3 wrap textwidth=78
  autocmd BufRead mutt*    set formatoptions=tcqr noautoindent tabstop=4 wrap textwidth=78
  autocmd BufRead ext*.bod set formatoptions=tcqr noautoindent tabstop=4 wrap textwidth=78
augroup END

- -----End of insert, do not insert this line-----

Quoting from Steve's message to me:

>    You'll note the last one is for PMMail.  In order, slrn, slrn, mutt, pmmail.

This is refering to the text immediatly following the BufRead, that is
how ViM knows what options to set for the file.  Obviously, if you are
not using the programs slrn, slm or mutt, you can delete the first
three autocmd lines.


>    Formatoptions tcqr makes it so context highlighting works, when you split
>a quoted line with a CR it prepends the quote marker automatically and a few
>other things that elude my mind right this instant.  Hrm, 2 would be good
>there as well, actually.  It uses the indent of the 2nd line instead of the
>1st for the reflow so paragraphs, like mine here, would remain intact.  Neeto.
>
>    The only other thing I can suggest in the .vimrc is to set the proper
>background (light or dark) and turn on context highlighting.  The mailnews
>context highlighting is nice.
>


Now, you're ready to go.  Set up vim in PMMail, using the FULL path to the gvim.exe 
executable.  Then, go into vim using ALT-X when you are editing a message.  To reflow some 
text, highlight it with the mouse,  and type a capitol Q, that should reflow the text.

Hope this helps.

JBB


- --
ICQ # 44910403
Power Listviewer URL:   http://www.bigfoot.com/~PowerListviewer
PMMail Archiver URL:    http://www.bigfoot.com/~Jonathan_Bayer/archiver

For PGP Public key block/Fingerprint send the following message to me as the Subject:
        Send PGP Signature

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies.

iQCVAwUBOCM7tI1F3x2FJJilAQFUHgP/cCQ6mal1u0KYxJN0LtvXVDkeke6FZESA
toMZ5GnIMxFlyRbcubq3XGclYvcUSOGQjvHZO9rX9mHlijVSb0cnXLpNViept0EV
wjxrGcerOCjH4Y+qvmt+abtbGrIPT4fYBj17x1phGPGFeyb82YQrUtelmn98Trk/
RGk8k0cbb+c=
=Fxqu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----