Making FuzzyFinder work in MacVim 7.3

Pete — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:06:14 +0000

I have seen many posts that are having trouble getting FuzzyFinder to work in MacVim. In certain configurations you will see multiple errors “E806: using Float as a String”. This is because some locales make MacVim treat floating point numbers differently. Here is how I did to make it work on my system (OS X 10.6.4 and MacVim 7.3). As an added bonus we will map it to the Apple-T key and default it to subdirectory search.

If you try “:let s = 0.5″ in MacVim and get an error you are affected. This happens when you have launched MacVim from Finder. In this case MacVim does not pick up all the locale settings properly for some reason. This includes the settings for the separator character in floating point numbers which may make all vim scripts with a dot separator (“0.05″) fail.

1. Install the FuzzyFinder script (including the l9 library).

2. In your .gvimrc add the following lines. This will deconnect the Apple-T from File->New tab and instead invoke FuzzyFinder with a wildcard for subdir search:

if has("gui_mac") || has("gui_macvim")
  macmenu &File.New\ Tab     key=
  map  :FufFile **/
endif

Now, start MacVim from terminal with “mvim” instead of double-clicking the icon in Finder and try Apple-T. FuzzyFinder should now work correctly. Here are some of the discussions for reference:

The Ideal VIM Keyboard

Pete — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:27:43 +0000

My colleague Niklas nagged me for not having disabled the caps lock key on my MacBook Pro. I was a bit disoriented at first but coming to think of it, I haven’t used the caps lock key since I got the MBP back in April.

This made me think about which keys I actually use. Being a recent VIM convert I wonder if Apple’s designers hate VIM. Efficient editing in VIM require you to use the escape key a lot. On the MBP the escape key is one of the smallest keys on the keyboard for some reason.

Am I whining about superfluous things? Maybe so. Maybe I should just shut up and remap my caps lock key to escape.

Give me larger keys!

The ideal VIM keyboard should have a large escape key. The colon is used a lot too. Maybe it could look something like this:

Peter Krantz » VIM

Making FuzzyFinder work in MacVim 7.3

The Ideal VIM Keyboard

Give me larger keys!