IMAP -- A fluid replacement for :imap *imaps.txt* Srinath Avadhanula Abstract ======== This plugin provides a function IMAP() which emulates vims |:imap| function. The motivation for providing this plugin is that |:imap| sufffers from problems which get increasingly annoying with a large number of mappings. Consider an example. If you do > imap lhs something then a mapping is set up. However, there will be the following problems: 1. The 'ttimeout' option will generally limit how easily you can type the lhs. if you type the left hand side too slowly, then the mapping will not be activated. 2. If you mistype one of the letters of the lhs, then the mapping is deactivated as soon as you backspace to correct the mistake. 3. The characters in lhs are shown on top of each other. This is fairly distracting. This becomes a real annoyance when a lot of characters initiate mappings. This script provides a function IMAP() which does not suffer from these problems. *imaps.txt-toc* |im_1| Using IMAP ================================================================================ Viewing this file This file can be viewed with all the sections and subsections folded to ease navigation. By default, vim does not fold help documents. To create the folds, press za now. The folds are created via a foldexpr which can be seen in the last section of this file. See |usr_28.txt| for an introduction to folding and |fold-commands| for key sequences and commands to work with folds. ================================================================================ Using IMAP *im_1* *imaps-usage* Each call to IMAP is made using the sytax: > call IMAP (lhs, rhs, ft [, phs, phe]) This is equivalent to having map to for all files of type . Some characters in the have special meaning which help in cursor placement as described in |imaps-placeholders|. The optional arguments define these special characters. Example One: > call IMAP ("bit`", "\\begin{itemize}\\\item <++>\\\end{itemize}<++>", "tex") This effectively sets up the map for "bit`" whenever you edit a latex file. When you type in this sequence of letters, the following text is inserted: > \begin{itemize} \item * \end{itemize}<++> where * shows the cursor position. The cursor position after inserting the text is decided by the position of the first "place-holder". Place holders are special characters which decide cursor placement and movement. In the example above, the place holder characters are <+ and +>. After you have typed in the item, press and you will be taken to the next set of <++>'s. Therefore by placing the <++> characters appropriately, you can minimize the use of movement keys. Set g:Imap_UsePlaceHolders to 0 to disable placeholders altogether. Set g:Imap_PlaceHolderStart and g:Imap_PlaceHolderEnd to something else if you want different place holder characters. Also, b:Imap_PlaceHolderStart and b:Imap_PlaceHolderEnd override the values of g:Imap_PlaceHolderStart and g:Imap_PlaceHolderEnd respectively. This is useful for setting buffer specific place hoders. Example Two: You can use the command to insert dynamic elements such as dates. > call IMAP ('date`', "\=strftime('%b %d %Y')\", '') With this mapping, typing date` will insert the present date into the file. ================================================================================ About this file This file was created automatically from its XML variant using db2vim. db2vim is a python script which understands a very limited subset of the Docbook XML 4.2 DTD and outputs a plain text file in vim help format. db2vim can be obtained via anonymous CVS from sourceforge.net. Use cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.vim-latex.sf.net:/cvsroot/vim-latex co db2vim Or you can visit the web-interface to sourceforge CVS at: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/vim-latex/db2vim/ The following modelines should nicely fold up this help manual. vim:ft=help:fdm=expr:nowrap vim:foldexpr=getline(v\:lnum-1)=~'-\\{80}'?'>2'\:getline(v\:lnum-1)=~'=\\{80}'?'>1'\:getline(v\:lnum)=~'=\\{80}'?'0'\:getline(v\:lnum)=~'-\\{80}'?'1'\:'=' vim:foldtext=substitute(v\:folddashes.substitute(getline(v\:foldstart),'\\s*\\*.*',"",""),'^--','--\ \ \ \ ','') ================================================================================