I want to make the cursor and selected text easier to read in vim (white background, black foreground), so i've done
hi Visual guibg=white guifg=black gui=NONE ctermfg=black ctermbg=white cterm=reverse
hi Cursor guibg=white guifg=black gui=NONE ctermfg=black ctermbg=white cterm=reverse
which gives me exactly what i want on MacVim. On the vim terminal, however, it defaults to the terminal preferences, which is very difficult to read and find...how can i override the terminal defaults?
Edit: to say that the hi Visual like works perfectly. It's the hi Cursor that doesn't.
You can't change the cursor colour programatically (i.e. just do it for vim), but you can change it in Terminal>Preferences>Profiles>Text>Cursor (see image), which may solve your issue.
I find a bright green cursor makes a big difference for visibility!
EDIT: This is mentioned in the comments, but I missed that the first time so I think it deserves its own answer.
I am not a Mac user, but I don't believe this is possible. The cursor colour in console Vim is inherited from the terminal application, and can't be modified.* You could try changing the cursor colour in the terminal preferences.
*Disclaimer: this is certainly true of the Windows command prompt, which I am forced to use at work. It wouldn't surprise me if other Unix-like shells were more flexible.
Related
I've spent a bunch of time going over my Vim and Tmux configurations lately, trying to refine my workflow and I have come across a (small but annoying) problem that is stumping me. I am currently using OSX, but I have had the same issue with Windows' terminal/powershell.
My issue is that I am unable to change the brown color that appears in the default vim syntax highlighting which is used many of the languages that I write in. The color that I am speaking of can be seen in this vim colortest:
In the default OSX terminal (and in powershell) you can set the ANSI colors via terminal preferences, however, the brown color is not included in the GUI configuration options. This results in some ugly syntax highlighting that does not fit in with my desired color scheme:
My question is, what is the most portable way to change this default color? I would love to be able to do something in my .vimrc that would just work around this ugly color so I don't have to reconfigure colors for any system that I might be on, but I understand this might not be possible. Another route would be changing the syntax highlighting colors, but my investigations into that have so been unfruitful.
Thanks!
Appedix:
Colors selected in OSX profile for screenshots:
Sadly, the default Vim colorscheme is not as tidy as one would hope. In this case, Brown is a bit of a "catchall" name that ends up being interpreted differently in different contexts.
In GUI Vim, Brown refers to the "Brown" in X11's rgb.txt: #A52A2A.
In TUI Vim with &t_Co == 256, you get #af5f00, AKA 130 in the "xterm palette".
In TUI Vim with &t_Co == 16 or &t_Co == 8, you get your terminal palette's "Yellow", AKA 3.
By the looks of it, you seem to be affected by the second case.
While there exist ways to change the so-called "xterm palette" wholesale, you will have a hard time changing that specific color in a straightforward, non-messy way.
What you can do…
Do :set background=dark to force Vim to use a different set of default colors that doesn't include "Brown".
Choose a built-in or third-party colorscheme that doesn't use that specific color.
Override the Statement highlight group as explained in this gist with whatever color you want from the xterm palette.
I am using iterm on my macbook and want to split it into multiple panes (both horizontally and vertically) like conemu. My end goal is to be able to type different git commands in each pane (conemu example). Is iterm capable of doing this?
If it's not possible with iterm, what are my other options?
I know you can "cmd + d" to split but then I only get the same terminal in 2 different panes.
Are you sue you are using iTerm? Any way I'll sugest to forget about it and use Terminal, for a macOS experience. iTerm remembers me of Linux, you have all the options but you'll spend all day configuring it and when finally is ok then some bug will hit and take your peace of mind How to exit alternate screen scrolling on iTerm2 Vim?.
This might help https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6504/how-do-split-panes-in-terminal-work. And #BennyPowers answer at https://superuser.com/questions/55459/how-to-get-vertical-split-of-terminal-in-mac-to-execute-different-actions.
I use the macOS native way to split vertically and GNU Screen (which came with macOS) to split horizontally. Execute screen then C-a S (to split into two regions), C-a TAB (to swith to the other region) and C-a c (to open bash).
You can even resize it with C-a : then type resize 10 i.e. and for more man screen.
When its done you exit andC-a k to destroy the window.
For completeness. A lot of people say tmux https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki is a better alternative to GNU Screen. I never tried afraid of the same experience I had with iTerm 2.
Looking for a way to control text/cursor highlighting colors when in vi-mode in tmux. I can not seem to find many answers from googling around. I love tmux and use this feature quite a bit, and I have been living with this flaw for some time and still have not been able to find a solution. You can view my dotfiles here. Keep in mind that my master branch is my OSX setup, and I have an "arch" branch for my Arch linux setup. The issues occurs on both systems. Though the colors are slightly different, but not by much.
Here is current symptoms: (both systems) I am in a tmux session, I want to enter into vi-mode for either searching or copying some text. When copying text (hitting v while in vi-mode for visual) the highlighted text and background are both black. So I can't see the text I am highlighting. Or while searching (hit "/" while in vi-mode for searching) my background and text on the entire line where my prompt is for typing the text I want to search is all black. So I have no idea what text is actually in the search. If I mis-type something due to fat fingers and nothing returns in my search, it can be frustrating. One last symptom (which is a minor one, but would be nice to solve) When I do search, I get absolutely no highlighting over than my normal cursor. Not like my vim set up where it highlights currently found, and all other matches.
Here is what the desired fix would look like: Searches would highlight in some shade of yellow or orange on all matched text. Searching prompt to type in search text would be at least readable. Anything but Black on Black. Highlighting text while selecting what to copy in visual mode again anything readable, no Black on Black.
Other things to note: I typically have mouse-mode on in tmux to promote keyboard-driven approach and not allow any selection of text via mouse selection. But when I do toggle this feature off and can then select text via mouse, the highlighted text background is white and text is black. While readable, would still wish to know how to control this color as well. Also (not sure any vim settings actually carry over to tmux) but everything works as desired while actually in vim. Just in case vim settings here. Same note about branches.
Most of my tools are latest versions afaik. This includes Tmux 2.1. I do not have full list of versions of my tools as of right now. If this may play a part in debugging let me know and I'll reply with versions. For what its worth other tools that might be in conflict is my shell I use zsh with on-my-zsh. On my mac I am using iTerm2, on arch I'm using URxvt. Doubt any of my .Xresources matter since it also happens on OSX.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I use OSX and prefer a dark BG and light text in my terminal. A problem is that the mouse pointer is almost invisible. Its the I shaped pointer, its black with an extremely faint white glow. I often can't see where the pointer is.
If the terminal does not have focus and I'm hovering the mouse pointer over the terminal window I can see it fine. But once the terminal has focus the pointer practically disappears.
Please note, I'm asking about the mouse pointer not the terminal keyboard cursor, which is easily customisable.
Holding down the alt key on Mac OSX changes the cursor to a black cross that has a white border which makes it far easier to spot than the default text bar.
A better term to look for is "mouse pointer". Here are some places where it has been discussed:
Change default mouse cursor on OSX Mavericks
Can I make the mouse hairpin in the terminal more visible?
Terminal app mouse-pointer invisible
More than one solution is suggested, including add-ons (which you may or may not find useful).
Following the links in Thomas Dickey's answer, I saw many references to iTerm2.
While this won't be the solution for everyone, it's definitely worth a try - GPL2, easy to install and configure.
Out of the box, no contrast issues with the text cursor or mouse pointer against a black background. I just adjusted font size and switched on window borders.
When text is highlighted in vim, for example using the 'em' tag when writing a HTML document, I find that in some color schemes the cursor becomes invisible, making it difficult to correctly place the closing tag. Is there a way to have the cursor change color over highlighted text?
Change color of cursor in gvim
Look at both answers sir, I think you'll have your answer in there....
You'd have to hook into the CursorMoved,CursorMovedI events and then determine the highlight group under the cursor with synIDattr(synIDtrans(synID(line("."), col("."), 1)), "name"). If it's one of those diffcult-to-see groups, you can issue a :highlight Cursor ... command to change it (or else change it back).
But this is rather complicated. Why don't you simply modify the colorscheme and choose a color that is easily recognized under all circumstances?! (The :hi command lists all colors and helps you choose one.)
This problem led me down quite a rabbit hole and caused me to learn a lot more about how syntax highlighting works than intended.
I learned that the reason my, supposedly italic, text was highlighted in the first place, is because the Mac terminal doesn't support italics ("Enabling italics in vim syntax highlighting for mac terminal")
I realised, thanks to "Colour colour everywhere! 256 colour-mode for Linux consoles", that due to the color profile I had chosen in Terminal's preferences, my "bright" and "normal" colors showed no difference, and for that reason my color profiles never looked like the screenshots.
And, finally, I solved my cursor getting lost problem by changing the cursor color in the Terminal preferences.