My VIM Pages
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Syntax Files
User Manual
 updated!

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Mike’s VIM Page

I am an un-reconstructed vi user (if you have to ask you should not be here!) To be precise I’m a VIM user. One of the nicest features of recent versions of VIM is that it supports syntax highlighting, which can be a great help when editing files. For more information on VIM follow the link on the left.

I have an interest in syntax files for the main file types I work with every day - C, PostScript, and DOS batch. The original PostScript and DOS batch syntax files were no more than stop gaps for when syntax highlighting was introduced to VIM. I started to rewrite them to help me at work and I now maintain the standard distribution PostScript and DOS batch syntax files. I produce an alternate Standard C syntax file as well. I am also the maintainer of the Rebol syntax file, a language I dabble with on the side.

News
13th September 2014
The VIM user doc has been updated to the latest from the VIM repo. I have also fixed the bookmarked PDF outline titles to cope with more than 9 subsections.

2nd November 2013
I have created new PDF and PS files of the User Manual doc. There is also new bookmarked versions of the PDF version.

24th April 2012
The DOS Batch and PostScript ftplugin files have been updated to include an undo_ftplugin variable.

13th September 2010
The VIM7.3 User Manual is now available in PDF and PS formats.

25th November 2009
There is now a version of the PDF VIM7.2 User Manual with bookmarks and internet links available - thanks to Xuanchen Tang for all the work.

6th September 2009
The dosbatch ftplugin had a number of fixes applied for variable highlighting - thanks to Tom Plunket for reporting them.

27th May 2009
The dosbatch ftplugin and syntax file have been updated to improve support for comment highlighting and formatting - thanks to Ingo Karkat for the changes for them.

13th August 2008
The user doc as PS and PDF files have been updated following the release of VIM 7.2. They can be found on the user doc page.

10th May 2008
The DOS Batch syntax files has been updated to fix highlighting escaped characters in strings and comments.

4th November 2007
The PostScript and DOS Batch syntax files have been updated to include spell checking (if enabled) in comments and strings.

24th June 2006
The Standard C syntax file has been updated. There are a couple of fixes - I missed a C99 printf float format specifier, and braces are allowed in parens for compound literals in C99. It also includes the VIM 7 spell group in comments and strings and syntax based folding (comments and statement blocks).

9th May 2006
VIM 7.0 has been released, so I have updated the printable usr docs from the distribution. Scoot on over to the User Manual page to get the copy you want.

24th February 2005
There is a new release of the Standard C syntax file. 8-bit characters in integer character constants are now highlighted as an error if c_warn_8bitchars is set and a fix for highlighting comments on #include lines.

8th August 2004
There is a bug fix release of the Standard C syntax file, with fixes for highlighting nested C comments and includes of standard headers.

19th June 2004
I have updated the printable User Manual files for the recently released VIM 6.3.

16th March 2004
There is a new version of the DOSBatch syntax file that now highlights delayed environment variable expansion. Thanks to Steve for pointing this out to me.

27th January 2004
There is a new version of the Print Manager plugin to fix a bug when doing N-up printing to other than the default VIM paper size. Thanks to Imre for finding it.

6th November 2003
I hated the normally invisible characters in the User Manual appearing - the lone ~, <, and > - so I wrote a filter to remove them and regenerated the manual again. Also, the PDF versions are now available unzipped, so you can view them immediately in your browser. The new files are available on the User Manual page.

5th November 2003
I have put up new PDF and PS files of the user manual for VIM 6.2. Available on the User Manual page.

3rd September 2003
No changes for ages, and then three is almost the same number of days! Yet another bug fix to the Standard C syntax file, this time to correct highlighting of #pragma and #warn preprocessor statements.

1st September 2003
Oops, messed up yesterdays little fix to the Standard C. It is now fixed and completed for C94 wide character scan lists.

31st August 2003
Minor fix to the Standard C syntax file to correctly highlight sscanf() scan lists that end with a ‘-’.

2nd June 2003
Released updated file for alternate page header printing following the release of VIM 6.2 - see print header for more details. Released updated black and white printing colorscheme to set the line number highlight group to use when printing (new in VIM 6.2).

20th May 2003
Fixed a bug in the Standard C syntax file v10.5 when highlighting nested array indexing. It also now highlights as an error the invalid token ~= - not that I doubt anyone tries to use it.

5th May 2003
The Standard C syntax file has been updated for a couple of minor things - correct highlighting of digraphs when allowed, handle line splicing of C++ style line comments, and highlighting of octal constants with a type suffix.

16th April 2003
Still alive and kicking. I have now added pages for ftplugin and indent files I maintain for the VIM distribution.

14th July 2002
The Print Manager plugin has been updated to support printing to file. The help file has also been updated.

I have also added a version of a runtime file that can be used to alter how page headers of printouts from VIM appear. The file can be found on the Miscellaneous Files page.

2nd July 2002
There is now a PDF of the VIM 6.1 User Manual with Bookmarks that can be downloaded from the the User Manual page.

26th June 2002
The printable User Manuals have now been updated for VIM 6.1. Download the most recent version from the User Manual page.

17th June 2002
Following the transfer to a new domain, all the files that can be downloaded have new contact addresses in them. No functional changes have been made, so if you have found this site already, then there is no real need to download the files again. Unless you want to that is.

1st May 2002
Yet another update to the Standard C syntax file. It now supports development on VAX VMS by allowing $ in function and variable names when c_vms is defined.

20th April 2002
The Standard C help file has been vastly improved and should make using the syntax file a lot clearer. There have been a number of bug fixes made, as well as a couple of new features - start of C comments that appear within a comment can now be highlighted as an error (some compilers don't like it), and the keyword fortran is now highlighed when c_c_vim_compatible is defined (used by some K&R compilers for calling FORTRAN libraries).

14th April 2002
The printing plugin has been revamped and renamed the Print Manager plugin. It now supports N-up and reverse page order printing, as well as the original duplex printing for non-automatic duplex printers. It is now possible to use the Print Manager plugin from the printexpr option.

6th April 2002
The Standard C highlighting file has had a help file added to it providing full documentation on configuring and extending it. In addition there have been a large number of updates to it - C99 additions to printf/scanf format strings, fix whitespace warnings (mixed tabs/spaces, trailing whitespace), highlighting speed ups, correct highlighting of C99 8 digit universal characters, add support for c_no_utf, and a few other minor fixes.

28th March 2002
Yet more updates to Standard C highlighting. Allow braces with parentheses in macro definitions for Linux kernel code. Fix highlighting of C99 universal characters. Can now highlight multiple character integer constants as warnings.

20th February 2002
Updates to Standard C highlighting. Correct pattern matching months in date highlights in comments. Fixed highlighting of a couple of C99 features, and added some missing C99 library types and constants.

20th February 2002
Fixed a bug in highlighting Type in the print black and white colorscheme. Remove duplicated lines that got in there somehow - sorry.

17th February 2002
Added a VIM Plugin files page with the Poor Man's Duplex Printing (my first) plugin. Updated the Standard C syntax files - improved the VIM compatible mode, fix some C94 and C99 error highlighting, and some optional highlighting elements.

4th December 2001
In case you had not noticed, I have tidied up my VIM pages. Anyway, onto the good stuff! I have updated all my maintained syntax files to reflect the current VIM distribution. I have also updated my Standard C syntax file - it now supports C99 - should you be lucky enough to have a C99 compiler. I have also made public the page for the PS and PDF printable versions of the VIM 6.0 user doc files.

12th February 2000
A few more updates to the C syntax file - highlight 0 (zero) integer constant as an octal integer (since they are!), highlight undefined string formats as errors (e.g. “%a”), fix highlighting ‘\\’ character constants when there are more character constants on the same line, and minor syntax file optimisations. Also, tidied up the description section on C.

30th January 2000
I have updated my alternate C syntax highlighting file. Along with a few minor bug fixes, I have also added support for new language elements from the Normative Addendum 1, 1994, which added improved support for wide characters and digraphs. Full details are on the Syntax page. A new version of ANSI C was approved at the end of 1999 which I shall start adding to the syntax file as soon as I can get a copy of it, but I doubt it will be any time soon since there are not any compliant compilers out there yet.

10th January 2000
There is a new version of the PostScript syntax file. It now handles empty hexadecimal strings specified with <>.

4th July 1999
Oops, forgot I maintained the Rebol syntax file so I have added that. Plus added some links to make finding details on specific syntax files easier.

27th June 1999
VIM pages created.

Copyright© 1999-2015.
Mike Williams.
All rights reserved.
That’s all folks!