Suggested vim settings

gistfile1.txt

Settings for .vimrc

" set our tabs to four spaces
set ts=4

" turn syntax highlighting on by default
syntax on

" set auto-indenting on for programming
set ai

" turn off compatibility with the old vi
set nocompatible

" turn on the "visual bell" - which is much quieter than the "audio blink"
set vb

" do not highlight words when searching for them. it's distracting.
set nohlsearch

" automatically show matching brackets. works like it does in bbedit.
set showmatch

" do NOT put a carriage return at the end of the last line! if you are programming
" for the web the default will cause http headers to be sent. that's bad.
set binary noeol

" make that backspace key work the way it should
set backspace=indent,eol,start

Settings for .gvimrc

Here are the settings for .gvimrc.

" syntax highlighting on
syntax on

" auto indent
set ai

" show line numbers
set nu

" tabs should be four spaces
set ts=4

" do not put a cr at the end of the file. this will result in headers sent if you do web programming
set binary noeol

" highlighting search results is annoying
set nohlsearch

" show matching brackets
set showmatch

" make that backspace key work the way it should
set backspace=indent,eol,start

" OPTIONAL
" show whitespace at end of lines
highlight WhitespaceEOL ctermbg=lightgray guibg=lightgray
match WhitespaceEOL /s+$/

" make the last line where the status is two lines deep so you can see status always
set laststatus=2

" vi compatible is LAME
set nocompatible

" no bell, please
set vb

" a better font...
set gfn=Monaco:h15:a

" set the screen width and height
win 80 25