I use VIM as an editor of choice for many years already.
Yet it's until recently I use it for a PHP ZF (Zend Framework) web development.
Few days ago I've blogged How to configure vimrc for a php syntax highlightning (A Nicely pre-configured vimrc to imrpove the daily text editing experience
This enhancements significantly improves the overall PHP code editing with VIM. However I felt something is yet missing because I didn't have the power and functunality of a complete IDE like for instance The Eclipse IDE
I was pretty sure that VIM has to have a way to be used in a similar fashion to a fully functional IDE and looked around the net to find for any VIM plugins that will add vim an IDE like coding interface.
I then come accross a vim plugin called VIM Prokject : Organize/Navigate projects of files (like IDE/buffer explorer)
The latest VIM Project as of time of writting is 1.4.1 and I've mirrored it here
The installation of the VIM Project VIM extension is pretty straight forward to install it and start using it on your PC issue commands:
1. Install the project VIM add-on
debian:~$ wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/project-1.4.1.tar.gz
debian:~$ mv project-1.4.1.tar.gz ~/.vim/
debian:~$ cd ~/.vim/
debian:~$ tar -zxvvf project-1.4.1.tar.gz
2. Load the plugin
Launch your vim editor and type : Project(without the space between : and P)
You will further see a screen like:
3. You will have to press C within the Project window to load a new project
Then you will have to type a directory to use to load a project sources files from:
You will be prompted with to type a project name like in the screenshot below:
4. Next you will have to type a CD (Current Dir) parameter
To see more about the CD parameter consult vim project documentation by typing in main vim pane :help project
The appearing screen will be something like:
5. Thereafter you will have to type a file filter
File filter is necessary and will instruct the vim project plugin to load all files with the specified extension within vim project pane window
You will experience a screen like:
vim project plugin file filter screen
Following will be a short interval in which all specified files by the filter type will get loaded in VIM project pane and your Zend Framework, PHP or any other source files will be listed in a directory tree structure like in the picture shown below:
6. Saving loaded project hierarchy state
In order to save a state of a loaded project within the VIM project window pane you will have to type in vim, let's say:
:saveas .projects/someproject
Later on to load back the saved project state you will have to type in vim :r .projects/someproject
You will now have almost fully functional development IDE on top of your simple vim text editor.
You can navigate within the Project files loaded with the Project extension pane easily and select a file you would like to open up, whenever a source file is opened and you work on it to switch in between the Project file listing pane and the opened source code file you will have to type twice CTRL+w or in vim language C-w
To even further sophisticate your web development in PHP with vim you can add within your ~/.vimrc file the following two lines:
" run file with PHP CLI (CTRL-M)
:autocmd FileType php noremap <C-M> :w!<CR>:!/usr/bin/php %<CR>
" PHP parser check (CTRL-L)
:autocmd FileType php noremap <C-L> :!/usr/bin/php -l %>CR>
In the above vim configuration directovies the " character is a comment line and the autocmd is actually vim declarations.
The first :autocmd … declaration will instruct vim to execute your current opened php source file with the php cli interpreter whenever a key press of CTRL+M (C-m) occurs.
The second :autocmd … will add to your vim a shortcut, so whenever a CTRL+L (C-l) key combination is pressed VIM editor will check your current edited source file for syntax errors.
Therefore this will enable you to very easily periodically check if your file syntax is correct.
Well this things were really helpful to me, so I hope they will be profitable for you as well.
Cheers 🙂
How to change default Comments and No Comments location in WordPress in wordpress default theme
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011For a number of time I’ve been planning to change my blog comments placement. Until this very day however I’ve kept the default wordpress theme’s Comments button placement.
I realize the default Comments button placement is a bit hard to see and not that much intuitive for the user that enters my blog for a first time.
My first guess was that there might be somewhere a wordpress plugin which will allow me to adjust my comments button placement.
After some research online and a realization that probably there is no such plugin existing yet. I’ve forced myself to tune it up myself.
It was clear to me that in order to change the it will be necessery to edit the WordPress templates files. I’m not a designer and when I hear about templates I usually get scared, however I took the time to take a look at the default wordpress template and find out actually that template modifications is actually rather easier than I thought.
My previous idea was that in order to edit templates you have to be some kind of CSS and HTML guru (which I’m not). Nevertheless it seems that in order to play and adjust in a good way the templates you don’t need ot be a pro.
Even an uneducated fool like myself can easily do almost everything he thinks of throughout few lines of code in the wp templates.
To get back to the major topic thanks God after a bit of review and reading of wordpress.org documentation and some user forums. I’ve figured out that in order to change my Comments placement you need to modify the file:
In index.php find the line starting with:
You will notice within this opened paragraph the php code:
<?php the_tags('Tags: ', ', ', ''); ?> Posted in <?php the_category(', ') ?>
| <?php edit_post_link('Edit', '', ' | '); ?>
<?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?>
This is the actual default theme php code that makes the wordpress Comments or No Comments that maes the comments appear on the blog.
Now I’ve decided to let this be as it is but add one more Comment button to wordpress on a different location that is more appealing to my blog visitors
After quick evaluation I’ve determined that probably the best location that the Comments button should have is right after the end of the post text
If you think my idea for button placement is appropriate, to set this location for the Comments button, you will have to find the follwoing code in index.php:
<div class="entry"><?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry »'); ?>
</div>
Right after the end of this code place the following code:
<?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?></div>
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