So… basically my advice is to just use both.ĮDIT: I didn't try it but the latest version of Terminal.app (in 10.7) is supposed to support 256 colors. To have the same vim in MacVim and Terminal.app.Īnother difference is that many great colorschemes out there work out of the box in MacVim but look terrible in the Terminal.app which only supports 8 colors (+ highlights) but you can use iTerm - which can be set up to support 256 colors - instead of Terminal. profile: alias vim='/path/to/MacVim.app/Contents/MacOS/Vim' You may install an up-to-date version via MacPorts or you can install MacVim and add an alias to your. Using one or the other is just a question of context for me.Īlso, like El Isra said, the default vim (CLI) in OS X is slightly outdated. Now I use both MacVim and Vim almost exactly the same way. I added some of my own, mimiking TextMate but, since I was working in multiple environments I forced my self to learn the vim way. When I switched from TextMate I kind of liked the fact that MacVim supported almost all of the regular shortcuts Mac users are accustomed to. I use both MacVim and Vim depending on the task and the context: if I'm in CLI-land I'll just type vim filename and if I'm in GUI-land I'll just invoke Quicksilver and launch MacVim. If you work mainly with CLI apps (ssh + svn + tcpdump, for example) you may prefer vim in the terminal.Įntering and leaving one realm (CLI) for the other (GUI) and vice-versa can be "expensive". If you work mainly with GUI apps ( YummyFTP + GitX + Charles, for example) you may prefer MacVim.
#Macvim vs vim mac os
MacVim is more integrated in the whole OS than Vim in the Terminal or even GVim in Linux, it follows a lot of Mac OS X's conventions.
Anything you are used to do in Vim will work exactly the same way in MacVim.