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I have been doing some java development lately and have started using Eclipse. For the most part, I think it is great, but being a C/C++ guy used to doing all of his editing in vim, I find myself needlessly hitting the Esc key over and over.

It would be really nice if I got all the nice features of Eclipse, but still could do basic editing the same way I can in vim. Anyone know of any Eclipse pluggins that would help with this?

Craig H
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3 Answers3

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Vrapper:

an Eclipse plugin which acts as a wrapper for Eclipse text editors to provide a Vim-like input scheme for moving around and editing text.

Unlike other plugins which embed Vim in Eclipse, Vrapper imitates the behaviour of Vim while still using whatever editor you have opened in the workbench. The goal is to have the comfort and ease which comes with the different modes, complex commands and count/operator/motion combinations which are the key features behind editing with Vim, while preserving the powerful features of the different Eclipse text editors, like code generation and refactoring...

gnat
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Tobias Cudnik
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There is this plugin that costs $20+ http://satokar.com/viplugin/

I use it and it works great, you've got basic vi movement commands and a set of others.

Here is an open source, free plugin but i've never been able to get it working (i'm on a mac).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vimplugin/

You can also go the other way and get eclipse code completion inside vim. http://eclim.sourceforge.net/ You basically run an instance of Eclipse and you will be working inside vim. They just released a version compatible with Eclipse 3.4.

New plugin I've started using https://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/viable-vim-eclipse

Pang
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Brendon-Van-Heyzen
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  • The only problem with viplugin is that it doesn't do a lot of *vim* specific features that a lot of us have come to expect. – Frew Schmidt Sep 25 '08 at 22:15
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    I use viPlugin and it contains most of what I would want in a vi-plugin for eclipse. But I find it extremely buggy when doing anything but the most basic moving around. Unfortunately, I find it the best optional available. I can't fathom editing using the arrow keys on the keyboard. My productivity would drop like a rocket. Let alone the other basic vi editing features. – DragonFax Feb 02 '10 at 01:48
  • This plugin specifically does NOT allow key mapping as the OP requests. – kajaco Jun 29 '10 at 19:25
  • When I last used it, many of the bugs had been fixed. All of the features I need it has. If you're new to an enviornment/toolkit ie. jdt/cdt/pdt, I suggest using it a while before turning on the plugin to make sure you can spot a bug if there is one. The same might be true for new projects etc. Overall I LOVE the plugin. Also, it really seems to not get in the way with a lot of eclipse's hot keys. Usually, all you have to do is go into insert mode to get the benefits of the keyboard mouse + eclipse hot keys (just like gvim). – David Jul 10 '10 at 19:48
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Viable has pretty much what you are looking for along with some extra features which none of the other plugins for eclipse seem to have, like some support for visual block mode, command line history, window splitting, and piping external commands.

It is pay ($15.00 CAD) but free to tree with all the features. I personally like it better than the other solutions.

Pang
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ldog
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  • +1 Was using vrapper for a while, but viable is definitely better. Regexes work! Author says splitting is on its way. – Leopd Aug 16 '11 at 21:23
  • the site is down - replaced by an advertising / parking page Unfortunately that site is not just the home for the project but the host for the update site, so where can we get this? Also the Eclipse Marketplace page has comments saying it doesn't work with Juno and has not been updated in a long time – Rhubarb Nov 28 '13 at 11:27