Question

I have recently started using Vim as my text editor and am currently working on my own customizations.

I suppose keyboard mappings can do pretty much anything, but for the time being I’m using them as a sort of snippets facility almost exclusively.

So, for example, if I type def{TAB} (:imap def{TAB} def ():<ESC>3ha), it expands to:

def |(): # '|' represents the caret 

This works as expected, but I find it annoying when Vim waits for a full command while I’m typing a word containing ‘def’ and am not interested in expanding it.

• Is there a way to avoid this or use this function more effectively to this end?
• Is any other Vim feature better suited for this?

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After taking a quick look at SnippetsEmu, it looks like it’s the best option and much easier to customize than I first thought.

To continue with the previous example:

:Snippet def <{}>(): 

Once defined, you can expand your snippet by typing def{TAB}.

Answer 1

SnippetsEmu is a useful snippets plugin.