Announcing: Vim (Vi IMproved) version 7.0b BETA


This is the first BETA release of Vim 7. Since Vim 6.4 many new
features have been added. To mention a few:

- Spell checking support for about 50 languages
- Intelligent completion: Omni completion
- Tab pages, each containing multiple windows
- Undo branches: never accidentally lose text again
- Vim script supports Lists and Dictionaries (similar to Python)
- Vim script profiling
- Improved Unicode support
- Highlighting of matching parens, cursor line and cursor column
- Translated manual pages for French, Italian and Russian
- Internal grep; works on all platforms, searches compressed files
- Browsing of remote directories, zip and tar archives
- Printing multi-byte text

Once you have installed Vim 7.0b BETA you can find details about the
changes since Vim 6.4 with ":help version7". There are also a lot of
bug fixes.

We can still change option names, function arguments, etc. at this
moment. Please check the new features for consistency and ease of use.


Testing
-------

This is a BETA test version. Because this is the very first release of
Vim 7 watch out for missing and misplaced files in the distribution.

The 16 bit DOS version is missing, the data doesn't fit in 64 Kbyte.
I don't know if that can still be fixed. I will not make an Amiga or
OS/2 binary for Vim 7. A Mac version should be available soon.


Where to get it
---------------

Information about which files to download for what system:
http://www.vim.org/download.php

All files can be found below this directory:
ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unstable/

A list of mirror sites can be found here:
http://www.vim.org/mirrors.php

Vim 7.0b is also available from CVS and with Aap:
http://www.vim.org/develop.php


An overview of the files:

UNIX:
unix/vim-7.0b.tar.bz2 sources + runtime files, bzip2 compressed

VARIOUS:
extra/vim-7.0b-extra.tar.gz extra files
extra/vim-7.0b-lang.tar.gz multi-language files
doc/vim70bhtml.zip help files converted to HTML

MS-WINDOWS:
pc/gvim70b.exe self-installing, includes all runtime files
pc/vim70brt.zip runtime files
pc/vim70blang.zip files for translated messages and menus
pc/gvim70b.zip GUI binary for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
pc/gvim70bole.zip GUI binary with OLE support
pc/vim70bd32.zip console version for MS-DOS/Windows 95/98
pc/vim70bw32.zip console version for Windows NT/2000/XP
pc/vim70bsrc.zip sources for PC (with CR-LF)


Mailing lists
-------------

For user questions you can turn to the Vim mailing list. There are a
lot of tips, scripts and solutions. You can ask your Vim questions, but
only if you subscribe. See http://www.vim.org/maillist.php#vim

If you want to help Vim development or get the latest patches, subscribe
to the vim-dev mailing list. See http://www.vim.org/maillist.php#vim-dev

Subject specific lists:
Multi-byte issues: http://www.vim.org/maillist.php#vim-multibyte
Macintosh issues: http://www.vim.org/maillist.php#vim-dev

Before you ask a question you should search the archives, someone may
already have given the answer.


Reporting bugs
--------------

Send them to <bugs@...>. Please describe the problem precisely.
All the time spent on answering mail is subtracted from the time that is
spent on improving Vim! Always give a reproducible example and try to
find out which settings or other things influence the appearance of the
bug. Try starting without your own vimrc file: "vim -u NONE". Try
different machines if possible. See ":help bugs" in Vim. Send me a
patch if you can!

If something needs discussing with other developers, send a message to the
vim-dev mailing list. You need to subscribe first.


Happy Vimming!

--
Two fish in a tank. One says to the other:
"Do you know how to drive this thing?"

/// Bram Moolenaar -- Bram@... -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\
/// sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\
\\\ download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org ///
\\\ help me help AIDS victims -- http://www.ICCF.nl ///