Re: Vim on the iPad

On Dec 30, 2012, at 3:40 PM, Chris Schneider <chris@christopher-schneider.com> wrote:

> Vim is usable on a remote server with my ipad & external keyboard.
>
> I use `prompt` to ssh up to a remote server I own and then just attach to tmux from there. Specifically I use a logitech ultrathin keyboard case. It works well enough, but there's no explicit esc key, so you need to get used to using ctrl-[ instead. Not that big of a deal if you do it often enough.

Eric: Yes, this seems to be about the only practical method (short of jailbreaking) by which we currently can use Vim on an iPad: an external keyboard for input and a remote server (something other than your actual local filesystem) for the actual edited files.

If you are willing to jailbreak your device, though (and this *is* a bit of a techie-ish thing to do, although I can say from my experience that some of the more popular tools for this are becoming quite usable for non-hacker-type users lately), a reasonable-sounding approach would be to do something like what I now see David Sanson suggested way back in September — use something like Prompt to ssh into localhost and use whatever vim is available there. I guess a downside to that approach would be that you don't necessarily have a terribly-complete vim built in, but at that point you would be in a position to compile a flavor of your own choosing, with all of the generally-required dependencies. I have never yet had occasion to do this myself do perhaps I should cease to advise you on how best to do it, though. :}

The last place of all to check in my opinion would be the iOS app. For me anything short of a standard filesystem would simply be too clumsy to work with, but worse than that, as of Nov. 14 this year it seems that the iOS app does not even have Dropbox support, and the only mentioned means of getting to your files is through iTunes File Sharing.

So to summarize my rambling here:

1. There isn't yet a practical way of using standard "vim with filesystem" on iOS *without either jailbreaking or ssh-ing into a remote server.* (If there's anyone on the list who knows of something available or being developed to answer this problem, please point this out to me.)

2. The provided iOS keyboard is no good for Vim, so you should use an external keyboard of one form or another for maximum vimmability (whether a keyboard case or an Apple wireless keyboard).

--
b

Sent from my iPhone

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