A vimrc starter

Here is a .vimrc file built from the recommendations in my Vim book, "Use Vim Like A Pro" (available on LeanPub).

 " ===================================================================

" Basic .vimrc Configuration

" Based on recommendations from "Use Vim Like a Pro"

" Copy this to ~/.vimrc to use

" ===================================================================

" Turn on all the magic, including Explorer and syntax highlighting

syntax enable

" Show me when I'm in insert/overtype mode

set showmode

" When a command is in progress, show it in the status bar

set showcmd

" Magic for completion at the : command line

set wildmenu

" Turn on the "ruler" (status info) at the bottom of the screen

set ruler

" Turn on man pages (type :Man )

runtime ftplugin/man.vim

" Indent in a smart way, instead of returning to the left margin all the time

set autoindent

" Expand tabs to spaces

set expandtab

" Don't wrap text (makes windows ugly)

set nowrap

" Highlight all matches in text when you search

set hlsearch

" Show matches for braces, parens, etc.

set showmatch

" Do case-insensitive searching

set ignorecase

" When a search phrase has uppercase, don't be case insensitive

set smartcase

" Tell the editor where to search for files

set path=.,..,/usr/include/**,/usr/share/**

" When I want spell-checking, I want it to be english

set spelllang=en_us

" Use industry standard 8-char tabs

set tabstop=8

" Use standard 4-char indentation

set shiftwidth=4

" Indent/Dedent to nearest 4-char boundary

set shiftround

" Show line numbers (recommended for programming)

set number