TECH TIP: Use Vim as a Chat Client
This tip comes from the book Hacking Vim by Kim Schulz:
Many IRC clients exist, and in 2004, the Japanese Vim user Madoka
Machitani started implementing an IRC client in Vim. He called the
client VimIRC, and what he constructed was a very feature-rich client
that supports chatting in multiple channels on multiple networks. You
can even use your normal Vim commands like I, /, ?, etc.
There is, however, a small problem when chatting from within Vim
(besides the fact that it takes time from your actual project). In
order for the chat to stay online, it has to create a loop that keeps
updating everything. When you move to another buffer that has nothing
to do with the IRC client, then this loop is stopped and you are
eventually disconnected from the network. So the trick to get this
chat client working optimally is to start it in a Gvim or Vim of its
own. This can be done directly on the command line with:
gvim -i NONE -i .vimircrc -c VimIRC where .vimircrc is the path to a Vim
configuration file with VimIRC-specific settings.
You can find the latest version of the VimIRC script at this
address:http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=931
Look in the top of the script for a thorough description of how to
install and configure it. You can chat with other Vim users if you use
the IRC network irc.freenode.net and join the channel #vim. See you
there!
This is an excerpt from the book Hacking Vim: A Cookbook to Get the
Most out of the Latest Vim Editor by Kim Schulz and published by Packt
Publishing; ISBN 978-1-847190-93-2. Reprinted with permission. For
more information, visit http://www.packtpub.com
HTH :)
--
Bharathi S