4 Vim Plugins Nobody Knows About

I’ve been using these four plugins for a really long time. And they are wonderful. But each time coming on Github and seeing the number of stars, I think that few people actually know about them.

1. AutoSave

AutoSave - automatically save changes to disk without having to use :w (or any binding to it) every time a buffer has been modified.

Why on earth we need to type :w or hit some combo <leader>-s to save changes to some file. We live in the 21st century, when people are going to Mars! And yet, we’re still repeatedly saving our files. Stop doing this!

https://github.com/907th/vim-auto-save

I use it with these settings:

let g:auto_save = 1
let g:auto_save_in_insert_mode = 0
let g:auto_save_silent = 1

2. vim-bracketed-paste

vim-bracketed-paste enables transparent pasting into vim. (i.e. no more :set paste!)

Another great plugin that removes the pain when copying between Vim and OS. Time-saver.

https://github.com/ConradIrwin/vim-bracketed-paste

3. file-line

Plugin for vim to enable opening a file in a given line.

For example, if you have some of the RSpec tests failed:

Failed examples:

rspec ./spec/support/breadcrumbs.rb:6 # Breadcrumbs logged in as admin user Users behaves like a page with #index breadcrumbs shows the expected breadcrumbs

you may want to open a file with cursor on line 6:

$ vim ./spec/support/breadcrumbs.rb:6

And this plugin allows you to do exactly that.

https://github.com/bogado/file-line

4. vim-visual-star-search

Start a * or # search from a visual block.

Another plugin, which I constantly use. Quite often, there is a situation where I want to see all the places where a certain variable is used. And having my cursor on it, all I left to do is to press * to highlight all the occurrences.

https://github.com/nelstrom/vim-visual-star-search

Example of using two last plugins (vim-visual-star-search and file-line):

Looking for more stuff? Check out my dotfiles.