Re: Looking for help getting iVim set up

On 29 May 2019, at 00:53, Eric Weir <eeweir@bellsouth.net> wrote:

I'm struggling trying to get iVim setup on my iPad. I wish there was a way to put problems and questions to a community of experienced users.

Most immediately are the walls I'm running into in trying to import my .vim folder and my .vimrc. The iTunes method won't work because the file picker in iTunes doesn't display invisible files and there seems to be no option to force it to do so. The iVim command ":idocuments import" seems to work with files but not folders.

I feel your pain, that's much harder than it should be.

TLDR: prepare your .vim folder in your computer exactly as you want it in iOS, open Finder, press Cmd-Shift-. to show invisible files, drag the .vim folder into iVim using iTunes Files Sharing. iTunes *does* copy dot files even if it never shows them. iTunes will even prompt you if you want to replace an existing .vim folder (iTunes UI sucks, I know).

Long explanation:

Folders may be imported easily, actually:

- with :idocuments, type `:idoc import`, then in the Files app find the folder to want to import (which you should have made available through Files in advance, e.g., by putting in your iCloud Drive), tap on Select, choose the folder and tap on Open. It works just fine for me. Files UI sucks in a stellar way, btw.

- Using iTunes, go to your device > File Sharing > iVim and just drag&drop your files/folders. Dot files/folders are copied even if they stay invisible in iTunes.

You may create and delete *visible* files and folders from the Files app (whose UI is total crap, did I say that?).

This is all well and good for the documents you want to *edit* (e.g., the files of the C project you're working on). But it's no good for your configuration files, which should go into .vim. Any method you use will copy data into /path/to/your/app/in/your/device/Documents (or Documents/Files or Documents/Inbox), but you cannot copy *inside* Documents/.vim (because .vim is invisible in your apps and in iTunes). Besides, you cannot move or copy stuff around with netrw, because iVim cannot fork. So, the best strategy I can think of is what I have suggested above: prepare your .vim folder in your computer then import it into iVim using one of the methods described above.

It would be much better if iVim used a different location for Vim configuration, e.g., `vim` instead of `.vim`.

As for getting further assistance with iVim, I strongly suggest that you contact iVim's author on GitHub (https://github.com/terrychou/iVim). In my experience, he is responsive and helpful.

Life.