Franco Pasut Blog

This article was written specifically for the graphic version of Vim, ie for gVim. I use gVim about every day and every time I need to write more than some words. Vim is fast, light, mind friendly, really efficient. I like to find any solution to improve my gVim experience to get the best results in the less time considering that I hardly ever look at the keyboard when I write (my past as a pianist helps me!). One of the problems I have to solve is the exit from the Insert Mode . The <ESC> key: a fundamental in Vim and gVim One of the Vim and gVim fundamental is the <ESC> key. You read in vimtutor and other tutorials that the canonical way to exit from insert mode is to press the <ESC> key. That’s true. But the <ESC> key is at the edge of the keyboard, far from the center of it. Then when you need to exit frequently from the insert mode it could be a little uncomfortable. The built-in alternative: <Ctrl-c> There’s a built-in alternative. You can u...

Make Emacs totally portable under Windows Table of Contents 1. Emacs for Windows is natively portable, but not too much 2. A basic solution: create a batch file inside the bin folder 3. Second part of the solution: launch system valid for any drive letter associated with the key 4. It's not over: we can also create a Documents folder valid for all drive letters 5. 32bit version for all computers Figure 1: Emacs + USB Pendrive = Emacs Portable 1 Emacs for Windows is natively portable, but not too much Emacs needs no introduction , it is simply a work of art in computer engineering. Although native to the Unix world, Emacs is also available in Windows version and is already distributed in portable mode, ie without the need for the typical installation within the operating system. However, the portability of Emacs for Windows is limited, in the absence of specific configuration, to the basic version. As soon as you try to customize th...

Installing an additional Linux distribution on a computer with a double-disk SSD, UEFI interface and pre-installed Ubuntu Table of Contents 1. The choice of the computer 2. Assembly and configuration of the additional disk 3. Installation of the operating system 4. A further step, but only in some cases: changing the boot sequence 5. Final adjustments: touchpad and resolution 5.1. The tapping enablement in the touchpad 5.2. Reduce the screen resolution 1 The choice of the computer For this test I looked for a computer having the following features: Pre-installed open source operating system Simple installation of ad additional solid-state drive Cheap price! I chose an Italian laptop branded Microtech with a little SSD M2 internal disk, (32 Gb), pre-installed OS GNU/Linux Ubuntu and slot for an additional disk under the chassis (€310,00). Figure 1: The notebook used for this article To install the additional operating sys...

Emacs Org Mode code blocks with and without colors Table of Contents 1. Coloring the code blocks in Emacs Org Mode 2. How to install the htmlize library 3. Colored Code Examples 3.1. First example: HTML code with and without colored syntax. 3.2. Second example: LaTeX code with and without colored syntax. 3.3. Third example: Ruby code with and without colored syntax. Figure 1: Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash 1 Coloring the code blocks in Emacs Org Mode Emacs Org Mode is an excellent environment to develop any kind of argument. If you need to display blocks of source codes in Org Mode, it may be very useful to know that there are two basic versions for displaying them. The first one is the monochromatic visualisation mode. In order to obtain this visualisation you must just wrap your code block into the tags #+BEGIN_SRC and #+END_SRC . This is already a good way of displaying source codes. But you can get a prettier look by...

Foreword on Markdown, LaTeX and Vim Markdown and LaTeX are awesome markup languages, expecially when you use them in creating and developing structured texts. I assume that the reader already has at least a bit knowledge of them. A structured text is a text subdivided into chapters, sections, or subsections, etc. The more complex the text, the more those two languages are useful. At the same time Vim is an excellent integrated environment for writing in Markdown and LaTeX , available in almost every operating system. One of Vim most useful features is its ability to quickly jump through the sections of structured texts. Square brackets can be very useful for Vim jumping through the sections of structured texts. But be careful: the same combinations of square brackets can have different effects in Markdown and LaTeX for Vim. Here is a brief comparative overview of the square brackets jumping movements in Markdown and LaTeX in a Vim (and GVim ) environment. Square b...

If you have a list of words or sentences in Vim and you need to add a couple of tags around each of them you cannot siply use the V (upper v) command to select all of them before using vim.surround because in this case you get only one couple of tags for all the list.

In Vim HTML mode if you need to surround a word with a tag you can effectively use vim.surround with the cursor anywhere in the word using the following string: ysiw followed by the specific desired tag.

Table of Contents 1. The traditional Cut, Copy and Paste key combinations 2. Vim and the clipboard 3. From Vim to Clipboard 4. From Clipboard to Vim 5. Vim and the shortcuts 6. Emacs and the clipboard 7. Kill, Copy and Yank in Emacs

Swap two words is a good exercise in Vim and its commands, including the text objects . In this article I will try to solve two possible scenarios for the exchange of position of two words without using any changes to the basic Vim settings .

In this article I will explain how the inverse search (or inverse synchronisation if you prefer) may work, in a Windows operating system, between a source document in LaTeX, written via a command line editor, and a PDF reader.

Definition of the target You've a table with some columns and rows (in the example: four columns and six rows) in a spreadsheet. You need to transpose the table in a LaTeX document. Yes, I know! You could use the features of an IDE to add speedly everything you need. But considering that we are inside a worksheet, why not use the column management functions of the worksheet itself? To reach the target directly from the spreadsheet, you can proceed in three steps. The first step is entirely inside the spreadsheet. The second one consist of the transfer of the prepared data to the LaTeX document. The third is the completion of the code in LaTeX.