Announcing: Vim (Vi IMproved) version 7.0d BETA


This is the third BETA release of Vim 7. It appears to be quite stable
and about ready for daily use, but I would like to do some more testing
to be sure.


Since the second BETA release quite a few things were improved, here is
a summary:
- $MYVIMRC is set to to the first found .vimrc file and $MYGVIMRC to the
first found .gvimrc file. Added menu item "Startup Settings" that
edits the $MYVIMRC file
- Added matcharg().
- The tab page labels are shortened, directory names are reduced to a
single letter by default. Added the pathshorten() function to allow a
user to do the same.
- Added CTRL-W gf: open file name under the cursor in a new tab page.
- "New tab" item in the GUI tabline menu opens tab left of the click.
- Added "usetab" to 'switchbuf': jump to window in other tab page.
- Added tabpage-local variables t:var.
- 'cmdheight' now works local to a tab page.
- Motif: Added GUI tab pages line. (Yegappan Lakshmanan)
- Win32: The font used for the tab page labels was too big. Use the
system menu font. (George Reilly)
- Use of the Enter key for the popup menu works differently, hopefully
better.
- Win32: Set the default for 'isprint' back to the wrong default
"@,~-255", because many people use Windows-1252 while 'encoding' is
"latin1".
- When init_spellfile() finds a writable directory in 'runtimepath' but
it doesn't contain a "spell" directory, create one.
- A series of bug fixes, see the end of ":help version7".

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 support.
- 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 7.0d BETA you can find details about the
changes since Vim 6.4 with ":help version7". There are also a lot of
bug fixes.


Testing
-------

This is a BETA test version. Please give it a good test and report
anything that isn't right. That includes a crash but also a typo in the
documentation.

A known problem is that generating the Hungarian spell file doesn't
work.

I will not make an Amiga or OS/2 binary for Vim 7. A Mac version should
be available soon on http://macvim.org/


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


An overview of the files:

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

VARIOUS:
extra/vim-7.0d-extra.tar.gz extra files
extra/vim-7.0d-lang.tar.gz multi-language files
doc/vim70dhtml.zip help files converted to HTML

MS-WINDOWS:
pc/gvim70d.exe self-installing, includes all runtime files
pc/vim70drt.zip runtime files
pc/vim70dlang.zip files for translated messages and menus
pc/gvim70d.zip GUI binary for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
pc/gvim70dole.zip GUI binary with OLE support
pc/vim70dd16.zip 16 bit console version for MS-DOS
pc/vim70dd32.zip console version for MS-DOS/Windows 95/98
pc/vim70dw32.zip console version for Windows NT/2000/XP
pc/vim70dsrc.zip sources for PC (with CR-LF)

DIFFS TO PREVIOUS BETA:
unix/vim-7.0c-7.0d.diff.gz sources + runtime files
extra/vim-7.0c-7.0d-extra.diff.gz extra files
extra/vim-7.0c-7.0d-lang.diff.gz multi-language files


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-mac

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!

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Tips for aliens in New York: Land anywhere. Central Park, anywhere.
No one will care or indeed even notice.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

/// Bram Moolenaar -- Bram@... -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\
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