Blogs » Use Vim as IDE

This is a general guide for using SpaceVim as IDE. including following sections:

• Installation
• Key binding guide
• Default UI
• project manager
• Fuzzy finder
• Git integration
• Files and Windows
• Search and replace
• Language support

Installation

SpaceVim is a Vim configuration, so you need to install vim or neovim, to enable +python3 and +python support for neovim, you need to install pynvim:

pip install --user pynvim
pip3 install --user pynvim

following the quick start guide to install SpaceVim,

Key binding guide

All of the key bindings have been included in mapping guide. If you forgot the next key, a mapping guide will be displayed, all the keys and description are shown in the mapping guide window.

for more info, please checkout the article about mapping guide: Mnemonic key bindings navigation

Default UI

The welcome screen will show the recent files of current project. The tabline displays all opened buffers or tabs. The filetree is opened on the left, and the key binding of filetree is <F3>. Tagbar’s key binding is <F2>, it will show all tags in current file.

project manager

SpaceVim detect the project root based on the project_rooter_patterns option. This is a list of patterns of filename or directory. the default value is ['.git/', '_darcs/', '.hg/', '.bzr/', '.svn/']. read the documentation for more info.

SpaceVim will change switch to project root automatically based on project_rooter_patterns option. By default it will find outermost directory by default, to find nearest directory, you need to change project_rooter_outermost to false.

[options]
    project_rooter_outermost = false

If you want to list all recent opened project, you need to load a fuzzy finder layer. for example telescope layer, the the key binding SPC p p is available for you.

Fuzzy finder

SpaceVim provides 5 fuzzy finder layer, they are unite, denite, fzf, leaderf and ctrlp. To use fuzzy finder feature, you need to enable a fuzzy finder layer. for example enable denite layer:

[[layers]]
    name = "denite"

Git integration

The git layer and VersionControl layer provide Version control integration for SpaceVim. These layers are not loaded by default. To use these features, you need to enable these layers in your configuration file.

[[layers]]
    name = 'git'
[[layers]]
    name = 'VersionControl'

Files and Windows

The windows ID will be shown on the statusline, and users can use SPC + number to jump to specific windows, the buffer index or tabpage index will be shown on the tabline. To jump to specific tab, you can use Leader + number the default leader in SpaceVim is \.

Search and replace

With the flygrep, you can search text in whole project on the fly. When the results are displayed on flygrep windows, you can also use Alt-r to start iedit mode based on the input of flygrep promote.

Language support

By default, SpaceVim does not load any language layer, please checkout the available layers page.