How can I activate Vim color schemes in OS X's Terminal?

I'm working with the Vim 7.2 that comes with Mac OS 10.6.1 (Leopard), using the Mac's "Terminal" app. I'd like to use a fancy color scheme. I did this...

:syntax on

Then this...

:colorscheme slate

:colorscheme elflord

:colorscheme desert

etc...

Syntax highlighting is working, but I'm finding that regardless of the scheme I choose, the only colors displayed are the basic Red, Blue, Cyan, Gray, etc.

Is there a way to get the Terminal app to display a larger collection of colors to allow some more subtle schemes?

Create a .vimrc file on your home ~/ folder and then edit it with vim ~/.vimrc. You can try adding syntax on inside ~/.vimrc file. The following command does that:

echo "syntax on" >> ~/.vimrc

It will highlight your code syntax on vim

You need to create file ~/.vimrc and add syntax on in that file

> vi ~/.vimrc > > syntax on

save the file and run your vim

Add "syntax on" to the file /usr/share/vim/vimrc and you'll get highlighting in your files every time you edit one.

# vi /usr/share/vim/vimrc

Add this line at the end of the file:

syntax on

Now you'll get highlighting when you edit whatever's file.

The Terminal.app supports AFAIK only 16 colors; iTerm supports more colors or you use mvim (as suggested by Daniel).

You might want to consider using a version of Vim that is a native Mac app (that runs in a window).

http://code.google.com/p/macvim/">MacVim</a> has great color schemes and you can still launch it from Terminal like so:

$ mvim file.txt

That will open your file in a new Vim window.

@ashcatch - Can't leave a comment, but wanted to add that iTerm has other advantages over Terminal.app such as sensible copy and paste (configurable 'word' regex for easy double click selection of paths/urls, middle click paste) and terminal mouse support (:se mouse=a in vi to get mouse text selection, moving of window borders etc.)

I'd be lost without it.