Apr 9, 2013 · Vim has been providing the 'listchars' option to show Tab vs. Space, and space characters in critical places, i.e. trailing at the end of lines. In previous versions (when the question was written), it did not offer a modification for all spaces: a blank square is a space, period. Other answers provided some workarounds, though.

Jul 25, 2016 · :nnoremap space i<space><esc> Then, any time you type space in normal mode, it'll insert a space at the cursor. Or you could just hit iSpaceEsc. OK, OK. If you really want to use the space bar in normal, add <> to the above.:nnoremap <space> i<space><esc>

(so that it is all in one place, this is the full list of key combinations you would do, where <esc> is when you press the escape key, and <space> is where you hit the space bar: qai<space><space><esc>j0q This saves the macro in register a) Now to play the macro back you do @ followed by the register you saved it in... so in this example @a ...

Jul 19, 2012 · You can put this line to your vimrc file to have it set automatically when Vim starts: set backspace=indent,eol,start " more powerful backspacing Also, starting from Vim 8.0 if no user vimrc file is found, Vim will set backspace to this value by loading the defaults.vim script.

Jul 13, 2015 · The default VIM indentation commands indent by shiftwidth spaces. e.g. >> Indent line by shiftwidth spaces << De-indent line by shiftwidth spaces Is there any way to indent with one or n (where n != shiftwidth) space(s)?

Without sasha's mapping, pressing <Space> will not behave like other keys as mapleader. <Space> in normal mode is mapped to <right>. Just press <space> a couple of times in a row and you will see undesired behaviour, which can be fixed by nnoremap <Space> <nop> .

Apr 23, 2020 · Only the ordinal space (U+0020) looks like an ordinal space (""). The tab (U+0009) looks like "│ " (two characters: a long pipe and then an ordinal space; they are gray in colorscheme murphy). The non-breaking space (U+00A0) looks like "·" (one character; it's gray in colorscheme murphy). Any other whitespace character looks like a red space

Feb 24, 2017 · Then Vim will use a mix of tabs and spaces, but typing <Tab> and <BS> will behave like a tab appears every 4 (or 3) characters. 2. Set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to whatever you prefer and use 'expandtab'.

Jan 13, 2010 · Then Vim will use a mix of tabs and spaces, but typing and will behave like a tab appears every 4 (or 3) characters. Set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to whatever you prefer and use 'expandtab'. This way you will always insert spaces.

Jul 18, 2017 · The vim-better-whitespace plugin incorporates many tips from the Vim Wiki page referenced in @icecrime's answer. It also has some nifty configuration options. I installed pathogen.vim just to use this plugin and am happy with my life, all things considered.