{"id":14617,"date":"2026-09-11T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14617"},"modified":"2026-09-04T17:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T21:26:20","slug":"why-gvim-is-my-new-favorite-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14617","title":{"rendered":"GVim is my new favorite editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n

I like using all kinds of editors, including the original ed<\/strong> editor, GNU Emacs, FED on FreeDOS, Edit on classic DOS, Mousepad on Xfce, and Vim on Linux. It\u2019s hard to pick a favorite, but I find I\u2019ve been using Vim for more things. I just like how Vim is like classic vi<\/strong> but with more modern features, especially code highlighting. And my fingers have \u201clearned\u201d the Vim commands, which means I can be more productive without switching to the mouse to scroll, select text, or use a menu. I can just type<\/em> and it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, I decided to experiment with GVim, the graphical version of the Vim editor. And you know, I really like it<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download and run GVim<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After installing, I found GVim in my desktop\u2019s menus; just click it to launch GVim. You can also run gvim<\/strong> from the command line; this will automatically start GVim as a background process, so it doesn\u2019t \u201ctie up\u201d your terminal window while you edit in the GVim window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"gvim<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Note that GVim reads the same \u201csettings\u201d file as regular Vim, so GVim started up with my \u201cretrobox\u201d theme. My ~\/.vim\/vimrc<\/em> file has these settings, which includes setting the color scheme to \u201cretrobox\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

colorscheme retrobox\nset guifont=IBM\\ Plex\\ Mono\\ weight=450\\ 14\nset nohlsearch\nset autoindent\nset tabstop=4<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
I prefer the \u201cretrobox\u201d theme; with Vim in a terminal, \u201cretrobox\u201d uses muted colors with a slight \u201corange\u201d hue, similar to what you might see on old-style amber monitors. I like \u201cretrobox\u201d because it\u2019s easy on my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With GVim, \u201cretrobox\u201d also uses an off-white background color, which I found pleasant to look at. It\u2019s not glaring white. Try exploring GVim with the different color themes; you can set a color theme with the colorscheme<\/code> command in Vim or GVim. In GVim, you can also use the Edit > Color Scheme<\/strong> menu action to try a new color theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also added a new guifont<\/code> entry to my vimrc<\/em> file to set the GUI font to IBM Plex Mono<\/a> at 14-point. The \u201c450\u201d font weight gives text that is between regular (400) and \u201cmedium\u201d (500) font weights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBM Plex Mono is my current favorite font for working in a terminal or editor, because it\u2019s so easy to read and the italic type variant looks nice when displayed in an editor. You might also recognize IBM Plex Mono as similar to the original IBM Selectric typewriter \u201cball\u201d font, which is another reason that I like using it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Modern but retro<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
GVim gives me the same commands as Vim, but in a window with modern menus. If I can\u2019t remember how to do something as a Vim command, I can use the menus to do it. For example, just use your mouse as usual to activate the menus, such as this example with the File<\/strong> menu:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"opening<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve started using GVim to edit all of my files, from source code to markup text. I\u2019m still using the \u201cretrobox\u201d theme, which I think provides a good balance between readability and clear highlighting. Here\u2019s an example of writing a sample C program using GVim:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"editing<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Note that variables, keywords, regular code, quoted text, pre-processor instructions, and comments use different highlighting, while remaining easy to read. The off-white background also means I\u2019m not staring into a bright white screen for hours at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find the \u201cretrobox\u201d theme also works well for highlighting markup systems, like this sample Groff file:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"editing<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
More to explore<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
GVim is developed as part of Vim, so you can find it on the Vim website<\/a>, but most users will probably want to install a package. I run Fedora Linux, which provides the vim-X11<\/strong> package. To install GVim, just install vim-X11<\/strong> like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ sudo dnf install vim-X11<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
If you use Vim, try GVim to run it in its own application window.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you use Vim, try GVim to run it in its own application window<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":3514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[5,219],"tags":[91,220],"class_list":["post-14617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","category-vim","tag-linux","tag-vim"],"modified_by":"Jim Hall","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14620,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14617\/revisions\/14620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}