Vim 8.1 is available!
Vim 8.1 is a minor release, a few new features have been added since Vim 8.0.
A lot of bugs have been fixed, documentation was updated, etc.
For MS-Windows, download the Self installing executable.
For Unix you probably want to get the latest version from github, see the
github page
Otherwise see the Download page for options.
Terminal window
The main new feature of Vim 8.1 is support for running a terminal in a Vim
window. This builds on top of the asynchronous features added in Vim 8.0.
The terminal window can be used for many purposes, here are a few examples:
-
Run a command, such as "make", while continuing to edit in other windows. The
progress of the command can be observed, the terminal window is continuously
updated.
-
Run a shell where you can execute a series of commands.
-
Use the new terminal debugger plugin for debugging inside Vim. This is
especially useful over an ssh connection, when opening other terminals is not
possible or impractical. I use this to fix problems in Vim when travelling.
The terminal window is also used in tests, to grab a screenshot and compare it
with the expected state. This allows for testing interactive actions, such as
the popup menu.
Running make in a terminal window while edit text:
The detected errors can be caught and added to a quickfix list, so you can jump straight to the cause of the problem.
Running a shell in a terminal window:
You can switch between the shell and the text window with CTRL-W w.
Using the terminal debugger plugin:
The top-left window runs gdb, you can type any gdb command here.
The bottom-left window runs the debugged program in its own terminal, so that
it does not interfere with gdb commands.
On the right a window shows the source code, where all the Vim commands can be
used to navigate and make changes.
A red marker indicates a breakpoint and the currently executed line is highlighted with a blue background.
A toolbar at the top of the window can be used to step through the code without
changing focus.
A balloon shows information for the symbol under the mouse pointer.
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