:chat!

Gilles

00:00

> I want to have a quick way of setting the Vim 'paste' option, inserting some text, and reverting to the previous value of 'paste'.

200_success

Can we agree that the question is about how to gracefully handle interaction with some keystroke-replaying mechanism?

Gilles

@200_success That's the motivating example. It isn't the purpose of the question.

200_success

I think I might just leave it at that. I've done my part to point out that your question is unclear or doesn't express your intention. I'm not trying to argue with you, just trying to understand and improve the question.

Gilles

6

Q: Set the paste option for the one insertion only

I want to have a quick way of setting the Vim 'paste' option, inserting some text, and reverting to the previous value of 'paste'. A typical use case insert the OS clipboard content literally, regardless of any insert mode rewriting that may be active, such as automatic indentation, and without ...

better?

Since there are several people misreading my question it must be unclear.

200_success

Better. You might want to change the title as well. I'll leave it up to you.

Gilles

00:05

But part of the problem is that you and jamessan assume that I don't know what I'm doing and I should be using "*p. I wish you'd operate on the presumption that what I'm asking is in fact what I'm asking.

user4704

make it a question make it a question

Gilles

@200_success Do you think it should be “Set an option for one insertion only”?

@JoshPetrie The title? No, I generally dislike titles that are questions.

200_success

That seems to align more with the information that you are seeking.

Gilles

I expect paste to be a common use case, that's why I put it in the title

200_success

But once you do that, it's fair game to "mis"-interpret the question (from your point of view).

Compromise: "Set an option (e.g. paste), but for one insertion only"

Gilles

00:08

@200_success too verbose for a title

200_success

It's a fine length.

Gilles

@200_success it's not a matter of length, it's a matter of verbosity

A title doesn't have to completely specify the question, just enough to be distinctive

200_success

But it needs to be descriptive enough not to be misleading

Gilles

@200_success How is it misleading? It doesn't say anything about using a clipboard. It says “set the paste option”.

200_success

It would be safe to assume that you have an X-Y problem.

Gilles

00:12

@200_success No, it would be legitimate, but not safe.

When you suspect an XY problem, leave a comment requesting a clarification.

200_success

I apologize for my poor word choice.

Gilles

Don't automatically assume the asker is stupid.

200_success

If I thought you were being … (not going to say the word), I would have just edited it without consulting you.

Anyway, I've said all I need. If you could also write a tag wiki summary for options, that would be appreciated. Thanks!

Carpetsmoker

We have plenty of options to retag that question

badum-tish

200_success

har har

Gilles

00:26

@200_success Ok. Do we have a tag for command line options?

200_success

invocation

Gilles

command-line I presume

200_success

That would be Vim's command line, I think?

Gilles

Ah

200_success

as in ex commands

We should probably do something about that trap.

Gilles

00:27

At least please write a tag wiki for command-line, and add a note “for command line arguments when starting vi, see invocation”

200_success

Will do.

Gilles

vi.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/237 vi.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/236

I don't think anyone has enough rep to review them yet

yes, it's 750. Tomorrow maybe.

200_success

I just need 29 more points. (Hint!)

Gilles

@200_success no, that's to review edits on posts. The threshold for tag wikis is higher.

200_success

Shog9 will probably get to it then.

Carpetsmoker

00:36

vi.stackexchange.com/help/privileges

200_success

@Carpetsmoker The background color question applies equally to gVim, I think.

I wouldn't use terminal.

Carpetsmoker

oh...Because it's sort of a terminal limitation

in normal vim, anyway

(I think)

Gilles

@200_success link?

200_success

4

Q: Is it possible to use two different color backgrounds in a single vim buffer?

I am looking for a possible solution for applying two different background colors inside a single vim buffer depending on context like in this sublime text example. One use case of that is to color code snippets inside markup files differently so they stand out more. However I have never seen a...

terminal colorscheme

Gilles

@Carpetsmoker Why?

I don't see anything in the question that's related to the terminal

There may be a limitation in vim's terminal driver, but that would be something to mention in an answer, it isn't what the question is about

Carpetsmoker

00:41

AFAIK, You can't say to a terminal: Draw that part white, and that part black ... Not easily, anyway. You can draw characters with different background colours, but that's not quite the same thiing

But I could be wrong perhaps

Gilles

@Carpetsmoker Yes, you can draw each character with a different background color. That's all the question requires.

Carpetsmoker

But filling up all the "blank" area's with "blank" characters has a lot of side-effects (copy-paste would be fubar, for example), so you're working around a terminal limitation

But if you feel the tag is wrong, feel free to remove it :-) The question came up in an edit review queue, and thought it would be a good tag

200_success

For the purposes of classifying the question, you're thinking too much.

Gilles

@Carpetsmoker That could end up being a limitation of an answer. But it's irrelevant for the question.

You could add “I only ever use gvim and I don't care about other implementations”, and the question would still make as much sense.

So terminal doesn't apply.

Carpetsmoker

Okay

200_success

08:30

1

A: Do we want questions for tutorials?

Opinion on this matter appears to be divided somewhat evenly. TeX.SE has shown that it can work, but users accustomed to the rules of other sites remain skeptical. I propose an experiment / compromise: Let's allow resource-request / reference-request questions during the private beta. Do you...

Vi Meta

11:40

0

Q: What do we do about on software recommendation questions?

In my short time at AskUbuntu, I have seen software recommendation questions ("What IDEs are available?", "What rich text editors are available?" [that one was actually asked, answered and upvoted quite recently], etc.) pop up fairly regularly. AU already has quite a few of such questions with ex...

discussion

Undo

18:30

This site seems to actually be doing fairly well

Carpetsmoker

19:05

I think this question can be reopened after my edit:

5

Q: What is the difference between the vim package managers?

I have been looking at the different package managers for vim and the one I decided to use vim-plug but I have seen others like pathogen and vundle and I honestly don't know what the difference is. Can someone give me a brief overview of the differences so I can decide which works best for me?

plugin-managers

Seth

19:34

done de done.

Vi Meta

20:26

0

Q: Is it OK to mark a question as a duplicate where the question and solution is similar, but about different topics?

This question on filetypes for Markdown is close to being closed as a duplicate of this question on the .sage/Python extension type. To be fair, both the theme of the question ((associated a filetype with an extension) and the answers are very similar. Is it OK for this type of duplicate to be ...

discussion

user4704

@Undo I am worried about the types of questions though.

Undo

@JoshPetrie like?

user4704

I don't really feel like the majority of them are not-also-offtopic on SO or SU.

Undo

Maybe not officially, but I bet the nasty people on SO would close them just the same

user4704

Yeah, possibly.

user4704

20:29

But I'm not worried about the nasty SO users.

Undo

So they might as well be off-topic there

user4704

I'm worried about the nasty SE staff who get to make the decision to kill the site or not.

Undo

lol

yeah

user4704

And who have, in the past, killed every proposal on the grounds that it would "draw traffic from existing SE sites."

user4704

Independently, I worry about the questions that just turn into plugin linkspam.

Undo

20:31

@JoshPetrie those can be moderated.

We do it all the time on SR

user4704

Yeah, it's just a chore. :D

Undo

meh, moderation in general is a chore

Much more fun than cleaning the kitchen, though

Carpetsmoker

21:15

Well, anything is more fun than cleaning the kitchen

200_success

Using Vim to clean a kitchen, though… that's fun.

Carpetsmoker

vim.org/weird.php

Looks fun indeed!

Vi Meta

21:46

0

Q: What criteria do we need to meet to ensure Vi and Vim continues beyond private beta?

This is the first StackExchange site I've been involved in as a private beta. I've heard murky rumours that not all sites make it past this phase; how can I understand what criteria this site will likely have to meet (either quantifiable or not) to graduate past the private beta, assuming that st...

discussion

Kevin Brown

@ViMeta How many sites have been killed off in the private beta? (not the public beta)

Seth

@Carpetsmoker Clearly the site scope is much too small.

What do people think about this being too broad? Some sites have done similar things in the past before and it worked out ok buuuut it is suspect.

6

Q: Does Vim have any hidden "easter eggs" or jokes? If so, which?

I've heard rumours about Vim having some hidden "easter eggs" and jokes. Is this true? What are they?

help-system undocumented-behaviour

user4704

@Seth I'd vote to close; "list of" question. Maaaaaybe community wiki, but I don't like those personally.

Seth

22:01

Why did I know if I posted that here Doorknob would vtc? why? :P

user4704

Got to it before I did :D

Seth

heheh.

Carpetsmoker

I don't see why it's too broad

Doorknob

@Seth Haha, I actually found that from the close vote queue.

Carpetsmoker

But maybe I'm biased

This is not STackOverflow, because this site has a small scope, we can allow more broader questions (IMHO)

Seth

22:13

yes we can, but will we. That's the thing.

Carpetsmoker

I think it's one of the things that would distinguish this site from SO

(I need to write a meta post about this)

I also don't object to it being community wiki, btw, this seemed better to me (seperate answers)

user4704

Just because you're small doesn't mean you should be permissive with broad questions.

user4704

As a site you also want to attract experts.

user4704

Experts already have countless excellent places for discussion (which most "broad" questions effectively are).

user4704

Plus, the question is also a list-of-things.

Carpetsmoker

22:26

So? It's not an unending list, there are only so many easter eggs

It's also not a subjective list

So it's different than 'list all Vimscript tutorials', or something

It's also a list of things that are non-obvious, like 'list all autocommands', or 'list all functions' (which is just in the docs)

/s/like/unlike/

user4704

Maybe, but I still don't really see it being a great question one way or the other. It just seems like trivia with no useful purpose.

mixedmath

there seems to be a high concentration of other-site mods in vi/vim

Carpetsmoker

@mixedmath I noticed that as well...

mixedmath

who do we have? Game Development, Math, Philosophy, AskUbuntu, CodeGolf, SoftwareRec

maybe more

Carpetsmoker

Code review

French Language

mixedmath

22:33

yeah, quite a bit

Doorknob

Puzzling

Carpetsmoker

@JoshPetrie Yes, I suppose it is a "trivia list" ... I don't really see that as a problem, though...

Doorknob

Christianity

@Carpetsmoker It is a problem. Stack Exchange is a network of question and answer sites, and questions asking for a list don't work well with that.

Carpetsmoker

The question alsp has many more upvotes than downvotes (+10, -3)

But many SE sites do have 'list-of-things' questions

Doorknob

Votes mean nothing in terms of on-topicness.

Such as?

Carpetsmoker

22:35

It means people found the question to be useful ...

Doorknob

That doesn't mean the question is on-topic.

Or that it should remain unclosed.

Carpetsmoker

From the tutorial meta question for example: meta.vi.stackexchange.com/a/77/51

I saw more examples, don't have a list handy

Doorknob

In fact, that's not always true. Votes can be used in whatever way one wants, whether it be because the question was well-written or because the answers were valuable or because the voter had a good breakfast that day. You can't tell people how to vote.

Carpetsmoker

Yeah, you're right, upvotes aren't 'leading', but I would say it's a rough 'indication' ...

Doorknob

No, votes should by no means be used as an indication of whether a post or type of post should be allowed on a site.

mixedmath

22:39

@Doorknob I'd say "no means" is too strong. A heavily down-voted post probably does not belong, for instance

user4704

In Game Development, our highest-voted questions are closed for being off-topic.

user4704

Voting and on-topicness are generally not related.

Doorknob

@JoshPetrie Like mine ;)

Another prime example: [code-trolling] on Programming Puzzles & Code Golf.

mixedmath

@Doorknob I'm not sure what [code-trolling] is, but it sounds bad

Carpetsmoker

Well, that means that oon Game Dev you're closing the questions people like the most ... There are certainly questions that are very OT, and should be closed (like 'recommend me a foo', or which is better, foo or bar), but other than that, I'm not big on the closing questions, myself.... It's not like this sort of question (that we're talking about) is harming anyway or is going to spark a long discussion

Kevin Brown

22:42

@Doorknob I'd call [code-trolling] a failed experiment, really

At one point it was "acceptable" to post them, but the community realized it was a mistake and decided to banish them

Doorknob

@mixedmath Uhh... yeah, it was. Not sure how to summarize the whole event.

user4704

@Carpetsmoker No, we're not.

mixedmath

On Carpetsmoker's behalf, it is true that some SE sites have tutorial questions, big-list questions, reference-request questions, and others don't. It might not be right for a vocal minority (even some of us other-site mods) to prevent a community opinion on these rise

user4704

And it does not matter if the question is high-voted or "liked"

user4704

If it's not on-topic for SE in general, or the specific site, it's not on-topic. Period. Full stop.

user4704

22:45

StackExchange is not a discussion forum.

Carpetsmoker

True, but this question wasn't a "discussion question"

mixedmath

@JoshPetrie In this line, you've already presupposed that it is not on topic to the specific site.

user4704

@mixedmath I'd agree with that in general, but the question under discussion was voted closed by the community, not a moderator.

Doorknob

Okay, so @Carpetsmoker, if votes == quality, how do you justify this?

827

Q: What is your best programmer joke?

When I teach introductory computer science courses, I like to lighten the mood with some humor. Having a sense of fun about the material makes it less frustrating and more memorable, and it's even motivating if the joke requires some technical understanding to 'get it'! I'll start off with a cou...

language-agnostic

Carpetsmoker

Actually, I said that discuussions are OT

Doorknob

22:46

Granted, that was asked way back when, where the rules were much less strict.

Carpetsmoker

@Doorknob That's an infinite list, like I said before, there are only n amount of jokes in the Vim docs

user4704

@mixedmath Referring to the gamedev questions though.

user4704

@Carpetsmoker The vim one wasn't, no, but most of the gamedev ones you were referring to were.

Carpetsmoker

So it's not the same ... Also, we're not StasckOverflow, we can have different rules. Hell, I think we're deciding the rules now together :-)

Doorknob

Still, many highly, highly upvoted questions on SO are closed, and if votes determined whether a question is on-topic, Stack Overflow would be a much different place.

mixedmath

22:47

@JoshPetrie oh, I wouldn't dare suggest that every community include these questions. I think they're dangerous. Maybe not bad, but dangerous. TeX.se seems to handle them well, but it takes dedication and oversight

Carpetsmoker

@JoshPetrie I haven't ever read GameDev question, I just replied to your comments about the most upvoted questions getting closed

Doorknob

@Carpetsmoker Of course we can have different rules, but there's a point where you start to step outside of the boundaries of what actually defines a Stack Exchange site.

user4704

@Carpetsmoker No, you can have different rules within reason.

user4704

Did you vote to reopen?

Carpetsmoker

But this is within reason

No, I didn't vote

user4704

22:48

That's probably the best course of action.

user4704

You're not going to convince me (at least) the question's on-topic without serious edits.

Carpetsmoker

Okay, That's fine :-)

We can "agree to disagree"

user4704

And you probably want to take the discussion to the question (or meta) rather than here.

Carpetsmoker

So what edits would you propose, then?

Doorknob

Also, let me just put this here:

user4704

22:49

Chat tends to be a relatively specific subset of SE users, culturally-speaking.

Doorknob

> Focus on questions about an actual problem you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.

(from the tour)

user4704

I wouldn't propose any edits, I'd just re-evaluate my position if edits were made.

user4704

@Doorknob Yeah, I like this point.

user4704

I much prefer questions about accomplishing something useful to questions about trivia.

Carpetsmoker

Well, on vi.SE there are only very few such questions you can ask, on SO, you can ask a gazillion of those questions, because Python's scope is much broader (the same applies to tutorial requests), so I think there's "room" for a limited number of those questions (perhaps about 4 or 5) ... On SO, those types of questions would be a significant portion of the total questions, but we don't have this risk on vi.SE, so we can allow these questions without fearing of them becoming a significant part

I think that sums up why we can allow this much better than what I said before :-) I will also leave it at that, before I start boring people ;)

So ... Something different:

Does anyone understand this answeR?

2

A: Prevent Vim from clearing the terminal after exit

As you are using an xterm you could use its main and alternate screen buffers for screen swapping, as in this section from my .vimrc if &term == "linux" set t_ti=^[[?1049h set t_te=^[[?1049l endif These vim commands add the relevan...

Because it doesn't seem to do anything on my system?

Doorknob

22:55

@Carpetsmoker I don't think "ignore the problem until it becomes serious" is a healthy attitude for the community, long-term.

user4704

@Carpetsmoker Are you using the same terminal?

Doorknob

@Carpetsmoker You're inputting ^[ as an actual escape character (\u001b), correct?

Carpetsmoker

xterm

Yes

I also tried TERM=xterm, TERM=xterm-color, TERM=linux ...

I'm not even sure I understand what it's supposed to do?

:help xterm-screens isn't very clear on that...

user4704

vim sends the strings in t_ti and t_te at some point, presumably when closing

Carpetsmoker

t_ti on startup, and t_te on exit

user4704

22:58

I don't generally use vim in a terminal, so that's more or less all I know offhand without going to :help, which I assume you've already done.

Carpetsmoker

Yeah

Not in a terminal? What?! You're nor a real vimmer! :p

user4704

Yes, well, vim is a lot of things.

user4704

But "an elegant modern piece of software" and "a good IDE for the languages I use" aren't in the list.

Doorknob

I'd be willing to dispute "elegant modern." ;)

Wait, are you referring to the actual code? Because that's just a mess.

user4704

"Elegant" referred to the code, and "modern" referred to the terminal legacy and cruft that hangs around.

Carpetsmoker

23:03

It's my observation that code quality & program quality are not necessarily related ... Certainly not in the case of Vim, IMHO

Doorknob

I'd point you to NeoVim, but that's still very much in development. (I personally still use "original" Vim.)

user4704

I would totally use another editor if one existed, but basically nothing else does model editing right that isn't just emulating vim.

Carpetsmoker

Terminals is almost nothing but legacy

mixedmath

@Doorknob have you tried NeoVim?

Doorknob

@mixedmath I've tried it, yeah

mixedmath

23:05

does it feel like vim, pretty much?

I've been thinking about the prospect of embedding vim within a proper IDE. It feels like the future

(I know there's no reason for me to have not tried neovim, I just haven't yet)

Doorknob

It does seem almost identical.

(Although I only tried a few things for a short period of time)

Carpetsmoker

6

Q: What is NeoVim? How is it different from Vim? And why should I care?

I've been hearing about NeoVim; how does it differ from Vim? All the points on the homepage are just architectural changes 'under the hood'. As a user, what's the difference for me?

neovim

"As a vim user, not much might change besides the fact that neovim should grow as a software much faster (fix issues, add features) as compared to stock vim and that it will have much better performance in the long run."

So it should behave almost the same, I think

At least, initially...

github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Differences-from-Vim

Oh noes, no EBCDIC support! How will I encrypt my files now?!

user4704

@Carpetsmoker They aren't, but in this case they are related to why I don't want to use vim in a terminal.

user4704

NeoVim's nice but too much work to build on Windows at the moment.

Vi Meta

0

Q: Is it ok to ask a generic question like "what commands are useful"?

Here is a question that would seem to have a lot of opinions for answers. Are questions like this ok? It's asking about what commands is ex mode are actually useful. What are Ex commands (and the Ex mode) useful for in modern vim file editing?

discussion asking-questions

Vi Meta

23:40

0

Q: Should screenshots be encouraged?

Should the use of images in questions and answers be encouraged? I think there are definitely times when it's hard to explain the problem without an image, but at other times it's reasonable to ask a question without having to include an image. What do you think? Should images be encouraged eve...

discussion answers asking-questions

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