Question 285857 in Visual Studio Code Question posted in
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Visual Studio Code – How do I get a pretty git editor experience on mac like I do in devcontainers?

I am an avid user of Visual Studio Code devcontainers and one of the reasons is that I can easily get a very pretty git editing experience for doing things like writing commit messages and rebasing.

git commit experience

git rebase experience

I know that this colour coding is provided by using vim via a devcontainer feature, ghcr.io/guiyomh/features/vim. Here is my devcontainer.json:

{
    "name": "testgiteditor",
    "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/base:bullseye",
    "features": {
      "ghcr.io/guiyomh/features/vim": {}
    }
  }

A devcontainer feature is nothing more than a wrapper around an install script and in this case that install script is https://github.com/guiyomh/features/blob/main/src/vim/install.sh. That script doesn’t seem to do anything special, it basically runs apt-get -y install --no-install-recommends vim

I would like to get the same experience on my host machine (which is a mac) but simply installing vim doesn’t give the same experience

git commit experience on mac

I don’t understand what is so particular about the vim installation in my container that provides this pretty experience. Does anyone know how I can get the same experience on my host mac?

In case it helps, here is the output from vim --version in the container:

VIM - Vi IMproved 8.2 (2019 Dec 12, compiled Oct 01 2021 01:51:08)
Included patches: 1-2434
Extra patches: 8.2.3402, 8.2.3403, 8.2.3409, 8.2.3428
Modified by [email protected]
Compiled by [email protected]
Huge version without GUI.  Features included (+) or not (-):
+acl               -farsi             +mouse_sgr         +tag_binary
+arabic            +file_in_path      -mouse_sysmouse    -tag_old_static
+autocmd           +find_in_path      +mouse_urxvt       -tag_any_white
+autochdir         +float             +mouse_xterm       -tcl
-autoservername    +folding           +multi_byte        +termguicolors
-balloon_eval      -footer            +multi_lang        +terminal
+balloon_eval_term +fork()            -mzscheme          +terminfo
-browse            +gettext           +netbeans_intg     +termresponse
++builtin_terms    -hangul_input      +num64             +textobjects
+byte_offset       +iconv             +packages          +textprop
+channel           +insert_expand     +path_extra        +timers
+cindent           +ipv6              -perl              +title
-clientserver      +job               +persistent_undo   -toolbar
-clipboard         +jumplist          +popupwin          +user_commands
+cmdline_compl     +keymap            +postscript        +vartabs
+cmdline_hist      +lambda            +printer           +vertsplit
+cmdline_info      +langmap           +profile           +virtualedit
+comments          +libcall           -python            +visual
+conceal           +linebreak         -python3           +visualextra
+cryptv            +lispindent        +quickfix          +viminfo
+cscope            +listcmds          +reltime           +vreplace
+cursorbind        +localmap          +rightleft         +wildignore
+cursorshape       -lua               -ruby              +wildmenu
+dialog_con        +menu              +scrollbind        +windows
+diff              +mksession         +signs             +writebackup
+digraphs          +modify_fname      +smartindent       -X11
-dnd               +mouse             -sound             -xfontset
-ebcdic            -mouseshape        +spell             -xim
+emacs_tags        +mouse_dec         +startuptime       -xpm
+eval              +mouse_gpm         +statusline        -xsmp
+ex_extra          -mouse_jsbterm     -sun_workshop      -xterm_clipboard
+extra_search      +mouse_netterm     +syntax            -xterm_save
   system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
 2nd user vimrc file: "~/.vim/vimrc"
      user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
       defaults file: "$VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/usr/share/vim"
Compilation: gcc -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -Wdate-time -g -O2 -ffile-prefix-map=/build/vim-DtwDbo/vim-8.2.2434=. -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1 
Linking: gcc -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -Wl,--as-needed -o vim -lm -ltinfo -lselinux -lacl -lattr -lgpm -ldl

and here is the output from running the same on my mac:

VIM - Vi IMproved 9.0 (2022 Jun 28, compiled Oct 19 2023 08:52:34)
macOS version - x86_64
Included patches: 1-2049
Compiled by Homebrew
Huge version without GUI.  Features included (+) or not (-):
+acl               +file_in_path      +mouse_urxvt       -tag_any_white
+arabic            +find_in_path      +mouse_xterm       -tcl
+autocmd           +float             +multi_byte        +termguicolors
+autochdir         +folding           +multi_lang        +terminal
-autoservername    -footer            -mzscheme          +terminfo
-balloon_eval      +fork()            +netbeans_intg     +termresponse
+balloon_eval_term +gettext           +num64             +textobjects
-browse            -hangul_input      +packages          +textprop
++builtin_terms    +iconv             +path_extra        +timers
+byte_offset       +insert_expand     +perl              +title
+channel           +ipv6              +persistent_undo   -toolbar
+cindent           +job               +popupwin          +user_commands
-clientserver      +jumplist          +postscript        +vartabs
+clipboard         +keymap            +printer           +vertsplit
+cmdline_compl     +lambda            +profile           +vim9script
+cmdline_hist      +langmap           -python            +viminfo
+cmdline_info      +libcall           +python3           +virtualedit
+comments          +linebreak         +quickfix          +visual
+conceal           +lispindent        +reltime           +visualextra
+cryptv            +listcmds          +rightleft         +vreplace
+cscope            +localmap          +ruby              +wildignore
+cursorbind        +lua               +scrollbind        +wildmenu
+cursorshape       +menu              +signs             +windows
+dialog_con        +mksession         +smartindent       +writebackup
+diff              +modify_fname      +sodium            -X11
+digraphs          +mouse             +sound             -xattr
-dnd               -mouseshape        +spell             -xfontset
-ebcdic            +mouse_dec         +startuptime       -xim
+emacs_tags        -mouse_gpm         +statusline        -xpm
+eval              -mouse_jsbterm     -sun_workshop      -xsmp
+ex_extra          +mouse_netterm     +syntax            -xterm_clipboard
+extra_search      +mouse_sgr         +tag_binary        -xterm_save
-farsi             -mouse_sysmouse    -tag_old_static
   system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
 2nd user vimrc file: "~/.vim/vimrc"
      user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
       defaults file: "$VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/usr/local/share/vim"
Compilation: clang -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -DMACOS_X -DMACOS_X_DARWIN -g -O2 -D_REENTRANT -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1
Linking: clang -L/usr/local/lib -o vim -lm -lncurses -lsodium -liconv -lintl -framework AppKit -L/usr/local/opt/lua/lib -llua5.4 -mmacosx-version-min=13.5 -fstack-protector-strong -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/opt/perl/lib/perl5/5.38/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE -lperl -L/usr/local/opt/[email protected]/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/lib/python3.12/config-3.12-darwin -lpython3.12 -framework CoreFoundation -lruby.3.2 -L/usr/local/Cellar/ruby/3.2.2_1/lib
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2

Answers


  1. 0

    OK, this one is pretty funny.

    Quoting myself:

    Vim’s spartan defaults having been a contentious topic for a very long time, it has been decided between the releases of Vim 7.4 and Vim 8.0 to provide newcomers with a more user-friendly base setup. The scheme that was devised is to silently source a specific runtime file, defaults.vim if no vimrc is found at the usual locations (see above). And indeed, it works as intended: simply starting Vim without a custom config truly provides a slightly more comfortable experience than previously.

    One of the admittedly useful things enabled in defaults.vim is syntax highlighting. This is what you are used to in your devcontainer.

    At the time, the new scheme was not very well received by the community because, while definitely providing a better out-of-the-box experience to new vimmers, it broke several long-established expectations, specifically regarding compatibility with vi.

    Still quoting myself:

    One of the many troubles with that scheme is that embarking on the life-long journey of mastering Vim implies creating one’s own vimrc, which effectively disables defaults.vim. This puts the new user in an even worse position than before: with the spartan defaults everyone likes to hate and no idea whatsoever about how to get back the admittedly useful things they got used to, because defaults.vim is pretty much a black box. Good job!

    :help defaults.vim provides a simple way to disable that mechanism if you don’t like it:

    let skip_defaults_vim = 1

    and it turns out that the people in charge of the Vim package at Apple don’t seem to be particularly fond of it, as can be seen in /usr/share/vim/vimrc:

    " Configuration file for vim
set modelines=0     " CVE-2007-2438

" Normally we use vim-extensions. If you want true vi-compatibility
" remove change the following statements
set nocompatible    " Use Vim defaults instead of 100% vi compatibility
set backspace=2     " more powerful backspacing

" Don't write backup file if vim is being called by "crontab -e"
au BufWrite /private/tmp/crontab.* set nowritebackup nobackup
" Don't write backup file if vim is being called by "chpass"
au BufWrite /private/etc/pw.* set nowritebackup nobackup

let skip_defaults_vim=1

    Now, you appear to have at least two Vims on your machine: the default one at /usr/bin/vim, with its runtime directory at /usr/share/vim, and the Homebrew one at /opt/homebrew/bin/vim, with its runtime directory at /opt/homebrew/Cellar/vim/<version>/share/vim/vim90.

    This is where things get a bit complicated. As shown above, the system vimrc of the default Vim, disables defaults.vim and thus syntax highlighting. But the Homebrew Vim doesn’t come with a system vimrc, so it should have syntax highlighting enabled by default.

    Since you don’t have syntax highlighting enabled by default, it probably means that Git is using the default Vim and not the Hombrew Vim.

    I can see two solutions…

    • Configure Git to use Homebrew Vim as core.editor.

    • Or create a ~/.vimrc with the following content (and, optionally, get rid of Homebrew Vim), as per :help defaults.vim:

      unlet! skip_defaults_vim
source $VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim
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  2. 0

    Just calling :syntax enable (as a command or in vimrc) should enable syntax highlighting if it wasn’t turned on by default. See :help :syntax-enable for reference.

    At the same time, romainl’s thorough root cause analysis remains valid. I also agree that writing a vimrc of one’s own is a necessary step in learning Vim.

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