Using syntax highlighting
Rustvim :help pages, generated
from source
using the tree-sitter-vimdoc parser.
Black and white text is boring. With colors your file comes to life. This
not only looks nice, it also speeds up your work. Change the colors used for
the different sorts of text. Print your text, with the colors you see on the
screen.
06.1 Switching it on
06.2 No or wrong colors?
06.3 Different colors
06.4 With colors or without colors
06.5 Further reading
Next chapter: usr_07.txt Editing more than one file
Previous chapter: usr_05.txt Set your settings
Table of contents: usr_toc.txt
06.1 Switching it on
Syntax highlighting is enabled by default. Nvim will automagically detect the
type of file and load the right syntax highlighting.
06.2 No or wrong colors?
There can be a number of reasons why you don't see colors:
Your terminal does not support colors.
Vim will use bold, italic and underlined text, but this doesn't look
very nice. You probably will want to try to get a terminal with
colors.
Your terminal does support colors, but Vim doesn't know this.
Make sure your $TERM setting is correct. For example, when using an
xterm that supports colors:
setenv TERM xterm-coloror (depending on your shell):
TERM=xterm-color; export TERMThe terminal name must match the terminal you are using.
The file type is not recognized.
Vim doesn't know all file types, and sometimes it's near to impossible
to tell what language a file uses. Try this command:
:set filetypeIf the result is "filetype=" then the problem is indeed that Vim doesn't know what type of file this is. You can set the type manually:
:set filetype=fortranTo see which types are available, look in the directory $VIMRUNTIME/syntax. For the GUI you can use the Syntax menu. Setting the filetype can also be done with a modeline, so that the file will be highlighted each time you edit it. For example, this line can be used in a Makefile (put it near the start or end of the file):
# vim: syntax=makeYou might know how to detect the file type yourself. Often the file name extension (after the dot) can be used. See new-filetype for how to tell Vim to detect that file type.
There is no highlighting for your file type.
You could try using a similar file type by manually setting it as
mentioned above. If that isn't good enough, you can write your own
syntax file, see mysyntaxfile.
Or the colors could be wrong:
The colored text is very hard to read.
Vim guesses the background color that you are using. If it is black
(or another dark color) it will use light colors for text. If it is
white (or another light color) it will use dark colors for text. If
Vim guessed wrong the text will be hard to read. To solve this, set
the 'background' option. For a dark background:
:set background=darkAnd for a light background:
:set background=lightMake sure you put this _before_ the ":syntax enable" command, otherwise the colors will already have been set. You could do ":syntax reset" after setting 'background' to make Vim set the default colors again.
The colors are wrong when scrolling bottom to top.
Vim doesn't read the whole file to parse the text. It starts parsing
wherever you are viewing the file. That saves a lot of time, but
sometimes the colors are wrong. A simple fix is hitting
CTRL-L. Or
scroll back a bit and then forward again.
For a real fix, see :syn-sync. Some syntax files have a way to make
it look further back, see the help for the specific syntax file. For
example, ft-tex-syntax for the TeX syntax.
06.3 Different colors
If you don't like the default colors, you can select another color scheme. In
the GUI use the Edit/Color Scheme menu. You can also type the command:
:colorscheme evening"evening" is the name of the color scheme. There are several others you might want to try out. Look in the directory $VIMRUNTIME/colors.
When you found the color scheme that you like, add the ":colorscheme" command
to your init.vim file.
You could also write your own color scheme. This is how you do it:
Select a color scheme that comes close. Copy this file to your own Vim
directory. For Unix, this should work:
!mkdir -p ~/.config/nvim/colors !cp $VIMRUNTIME/colors/morning.vim ~/.config/nvim/colors/mine.vimThis is done from Vim, because it knows the value of $VIMRUNTIME.
Edit the color scheme file. These entries are useful:
cterm attributes in a color terminal
ctermfg foreground color in a color terminal
ctermbg background color in a color terminal
gui attributes in the GUI
guifg foreground color in the GUI
guibg background color in the GUI
For example, to make comments green:
:highlight Comment ctermfg=green guifg=green
Attributes you can use for "cterm" and "gui" are "bold" and "underline".
If you want both, use "bold,underline". For details see the :highlight
command.
Tell Vim to always use your color scheme. Put this line in your vimrc:
colorscheme mineIf you want to see what the most often used color combinations look like, use this command:
:runtime syntax/colortest.vimYou will see text in various color combinations. You can check which ones are readable and look nice.
06.4 With colors or without colors
Displaying text in color takes a lot of effort. If you find the displaying
too slow, you might want to disable syntax highlighting for a moment:
:syntax clearWhen editing another file (or the same one) the colors will come back.
If you want to stop highlighting completely use:
:syntax offThis will completely disable syntax highlighting and remove it immediately for all buffers. See :syntax-off for more details.
:syn-manual
If you want syntax highlighting only for specific files, use this:
:syntax manualThis will enable the syntax highlighting, but not switch it on automatically when starting to edit a buffer. To switch highlighting on for the current buffer, set the 'syntax' option:
:set syntax=ON
06.5 Further reading
usr_44.txt Your own syntax highlighted.
syntax All the details.
Next chapter: usr_07.txt Editing more than one file
Copyright: see manual-copyright