URL: http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/vim/vim6vote.html
URL: https://www.vim8.org/vim6vote.html (mirror)
Created: Thu Oct 29 09:00:00 CET 1998
Last update: Thu Dec 03 18:30:00 CET 1998
VIM-6 - Vote for features - results
The vote for features of Vim-6 is now over. Here are the results:
From: Bram Moolenaar
To: vim-announce@vim.org
Subject: Vim voting: And the winner is...
Date: Wed, 02 Dec 98 09:17:53 +0100
Hello all,
I am very happy to announce that the voting went very well. In total there
were 392 valid and 11 invalid vote lists. Thank you all for sending in your
votes! It certainly stimulates me to continue work on Vim.
NOTE: Don't send votes anymore. I will just throw them away.
Here are the results, sorted on total number of votes. The first number is
the total number of votes for the item. The number in brackets is the number
negative points (total = positive + negative).
317 (-5) add folding (display only a selected part of the text)
252 (-10) vertically split windows (side-by-side)
197 (-3) add configurable auto-indenting for many languages (like 'cindent')
183 (-5) fix all problems, big and small; make Vim more robust
155 (-8) add Perl compatible search pattern
125 (-1) search patterns that cross line boundaries
125 (-1) improve syntax highlighting speed
116 improve syntax highlighting functionality
101 add a menu that lists all buffers
93 (-6) multiple top-level windows for one running Vim
93 (-1) improve the overall performance
90 (-4) be able to edit the command line with Vi commands
90 (-36) add a shell window (to type and execute shell commands in)
83 add patterns to define sections/paragraphs for "{", "[[", "%", etc.
81 improve Visual block mode: more commands that work on blocks
71 (-13) reduce the size of the executable and the runtime memory use
70 (-5) improve the on-line help
68 (-2) improve multi-byte character support
59 (-8) improve the Visual Studio interface (VisVim)
59 (-12) make it possible to run Vim inside a window of another program
58 (-11) add an undo tree (be able to go back to any previous situation)
58 impvove "gq" formatting of text (left&right; justified, 'comments')
57 (-9) add support for loading a shared library that defines new commands
54 (-1) add a way to execute a command in multiple buffers/windows
52 improve the Perl interface
51 (-10) improve printing from gvim (File.Print menu entry)
50 (-20) make a "Vim lite" version, which is small and low on features
47 add a method to repeat a prev. executed change ("c.", "d.", etc.)
44 (-8) add more features to the internal scripting language
37 (-2) add better support for editing files in projects (with ID utils)
37 add a command to repeat a whole mapping (not only its last change)
33 (-3) add handling for buffer-changed outside of Vim (when reg. focus)
28 (-14) add persistent undo (undo to before the file was saved/loaded)
28 improve Insert mode completion
25 improve command line completion
23 (-30) be able to run a program in a Vim window, with an interface to it
22 improve the quickfix commands
21 (-6) add a special window for editing option values, with short docs
21 (-1) add mappings and abbreviations local to a buffer
19 (-4) add file locking
18 (-1) add a way to disable (error) messages for a moment
17 (-5) add encryption for loading/storing files and for the swapfile
10 (-1) add scope arguments to the ":tag" command (like Elvis)
10 improve the port for MacOS X Server aka Rhapsody
10 add Qt interface
9 (-3) improve the tutor (course for beginners)
8 (-6) improve the performance of Vim scripts (pre-parse them)
8 (-3) improve 'viminfo' (keeping information when quitting Vim)
8 (-1) add a stack for saving/restoring options
8 improve the port for OS/2
7 (-2) add more autocommand events (for ":cd", start Insert mode, etc.)
6 (-4) improve the TCL interface
6 (-4) add option to move the cursor where there is no text in Visual mode
5 improve the port for MacOS
4 (-8) add POSIX compatible search patterns
4 (-5) add option not to move the cursor when using a scrollbar
4 improve the port for GTK
4 add Diff, Merge capability with CVS like in emacs.
3 (-2) improve the Cscope interface
3 (-14) add option to move the cursor where there is no text in any mode
3 improve the port for X Window (use GTK, or Athena)
2 add support for Borland Delphi (to replace borland's def. editor)
2 add on-the-fly paragraph formatting / word wraps
1 improve the port for "EPOC 32"
1 add GUI to record/stop/play a keystroke macro
0 (-2) improve ":mksession" support (switch to a previously saved state)
-1 (-1) improve the port for * (fill in a system name at the *. E.g. VMS")
-4 (-77) add more GUI functions (requesters, menus, dialogs)
-10 (-17) improve compatibility of the Ex mode
-10 (-15) improve the OLE interface
-10 (-14) add "open" mode, like the original Vi
-12 (-89) add on-the-fly spell checking
-13 (-32) improve Vi compatibility
-13 (-24) reduce the size of the distribution (harddisk usage)
-25 (-38) add a lot of small features, instead of a few big ones
-47 (-53) improve the 16 bit DOS version (avoid out-of-memory problems)
-81 (-123) improve gvim to fit in the MS-Windows look&feel; (with an option)
-110 (-136) stop changing Vim, it's fine as it is
-117 (-122) remove functionality, there is too much of it
Vim versions used:
1.15 1 (on the Amiga)
2.0 1
3.0 16
3.2 1
4.x 4
4.0 3
4.2 7
4.5 15
4.6 34
5.x 7
5.0 91
5.1 151
5.2 73
5.3 616
5.4a 18
Operating systems mentioned:
Unix 655 Linux 227 Debian 23
RedHat 36
Various 168
Solaris/SunOS 196
HP-UX 77
Irix 58
AIX 46
Digital/OSF 31
FreeBSD 20
Various 28
Windows 303 Windows NT 152
Windows 95 109
Windows 98 23
Windows 3.1 6
Windows various 13
MS-DOS 35
OS/2 8
Amiga 7
Macintosh 6
RISC/os 4
VMS 3
LynxOX 3
QNX 1
A few remarks:
- Only Vim users responded. This means that opinions of people who don't use
Vim yet, perhaps because something is missing or not working well, are not
included here. When deciding what to do next, items for first-time Vim
users may be given a higher priority than what the votes indicate.
- The explanation was a bit unclear about the maximum number of points.
A few people used 15 positive and 5 negative points (total 10 points).
Since these were only a few, I let them slip through.
- One person was caught sending in six vote lists from different addresses.
All his votes were discarded (he admitted he was doing a bad thing and
apologized). A few obviously doubled messages were removed.
If others sent in more than one list, they got away with it :-).
- Some people can't count till ten. I allowed them to send in a new list.
- One person mentioned using Vim on 40 different platforms!
Links
List of features to vote on
Send feedback on this page to
Sven Guckes
[email protected]