Instead of the usual self presentation for a first post, I’ll present you my favorite text editor.
I use VIM. Mainly because it meets my needs. However, I understand other people may like different editors (if you happen to have twelve fingers and prefer Emacs).
A text editor is a tool that we use a lot of time in your day (at least, in mine). Think about a normal text editing activities, when you need to:
So, VIM is really powerful. However, I will not explain you how to use it, because a lot of people already wrote really good documentations on how to use it. Instead, I will present you the different plugins that make life easier and make us productive.
Let’s start with the “simple but effective” category:
Similarly, if you are writing a lot in LaTeX, the LaTeX-Suite plugin is life-changing. Small keywords in the insert mode are replaced with pre-filed structure (just as the C/C++ IDE). For example, typing « EFI » gives you the skeleton of a figure inclusions. Auto-folding for section, subsection, etc. is also available. And because there is to many keyword to remember, here is Michael Goerz’s wonderful cheat sheet. Did I also told you that taglist is compatible with LaTeX syntax ?
And there is more, you can customize almost everything:
I’m sure there is many more useful plugins I have never heard off, please drop a comment and share the one your are using!