Some vim hacks

1. BlurSave

" Add ability to save named files when vim loses focus.
if exists("g:loaded_plugin_blursave")
 finish
endif
let g:loaded_plugin_blursave = 1
let s:active = 0

function BlurSaveAutocmdHook()
 if s:active
  silent! wa
 endif
endfunction

autocmd FocusLost * call BlurSaveAutocmdHook()
command BlurSaveOn let s:active = 1
command BlurSaveOff let s:active = 0

Save to ~/.vim/plugin/blursave.vim (or vimfiles\plugin\blursave.vim for Windows) and you now have a :BlurSaveOn command: every time your gvim (or Windows console vim) loses focus, named buffers will be saved.

My plan here is to develop a Mojolicious app in Windows gvim, with the files in a folder shared with a VirtualBox VM.  With blursave, when I Alt+Tab to the browser, vim saves and morbo reloads.

2. Graceful Fallback

The vim function exists() can test just about anything. I now have this stanza in my ~/.vim/syntax/after/mkd.vim:

" Engage UniCycle plugin, if loaded
if exists(":UniCycleOn")
    UniCycleOn
endif

Now, whenever I'm writing a new blog post for propaganda, I don't have to remember to run :UniCycleOn manually.

3. Extension remapping

Due to the disagreement on various systems as to what markdown should be called (Nocs for iOS offers just about every option except .mkd, while that happens to be the preferred extension for the syntax file I have for it—actually named mkd.vim), I also link .md to the mkd syntax in ~/.vimrc:

" .md => markdown
autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.md  setlocal filetype=mkd 

This lets me make Nocs-friendly Markdown files and still have vim highlight them.