What vim plugins are available for Eclipse?

I have found three and would like to know if there are others and what their advantages or disadvantages might be:

• [Vimplugin][1]
• [Vrapper][2]
• [Eclim][3]

I've included Eclim, but it differs from the other two options in that it makes Eclipse functionality available in vim and what I'm really after is vim functionality within the Eclipse environment.

[1]: http://www.vimplugin.org/ "Vimplugin" [2]: http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/home/ [3]: http://eclim.org/

Eclim

Eclim is not the correct approach in my opinion. You want to retain the flexibility and functionality of the IDE while gaining the editing power of Vim.

viPlugin

I used viPlugin when I was working with Eclipse. However it is not free (unlike the IntelliJ Idea Vim plugin). It also is not as thorough as the Visual Studio Vim plugin. You'll find that certain functionality is missing. Things like Ctrl+] to "go to definition" or Ctrl+o for "go back" don't work. Macros don't work either however it does have marks. It provides the core functionality of Vim text editing. If I recall correctly you can even have a simple vimrc configuration file. You can do a free trial to test it out.

Vrapper

Apparently Vrapper has macros and marks, as well as the following commands:

Motions

h j k l w W e E b B f F t T ; , ^ $ 0 % G H M L gg ge gE

Operators

y Y d D c C s S p P r J x X i I a A o O . < > gc gu gU

Search

/ ? n N * #

Text Objects (only in normal mode)

ib i( i) i[ i] iB i{ i} i< i> i" i' iib i( i) i[ i] iB i{ i} i< i> i" i' i iw iW ab a( a) a[ a] aB a{ a} a< a> a" a' a aw aW aw aW

Counts

You can use the number keys to specify counts in front of other commands. Other Commands

v V u <C-R> <C-F> <C-B> ~ q @ zo zR zc zM zz gt gT

Plus it's free, so I'd go with that one.

I have tried Viable and it's my top pick out of them all. It's got pretty much all the features of Vrapper, but some additional features that none of the others have like window splitting, command history, and external filters and commands.

It is pay, but it's free to try. It does lack some of the basics like Pierre mentioned, no support for Ctrl+] for example, however the development is active so chances are it will be implemented.

I used viplugin for quite a while, but now that I've built up a pretty customized vim environment I've switched to eclim. Vim already gives you most of what you need - tags, file navigation, and project view. Eclim gives you a way to plug into eclipse and gets you the completion and refactoring tools. You use vim for what it's best at and eclipse for what it's best at.

Really, I think trying to reimplement vim within the eclipse environment is just a losing proposition. If all you care about are the basic movement and navigation functions, one of the plugins will work just fine. But if you've invested time in getting vim to work the way you want it to, eclim is a painless way to easily hook into eclipse.

Sadly, viplugin is the best one.