I Can't copy FROM vim. Can you diagnose my .vimrc file?

Question

I based my vimrc file on a popular thread here on SO, and although it's great I have a real problem when it comes to copying text from vim to other linux applications. I suspect the error lies in this vimrc since I can copy when vim is loaded from a blank vimrc file.

What's wrong here?

Bonus question: how do i copy from my guest ubuntu to windows?

My vimrc file can be found here: http://dpaste.org/X4MY/

Answer 1

Nothing in your .vimrc file strikes me as a problem except perhaps the line

set clipboard+=unnamed

The issue is that the exclude term of the 'clipboard' option, which is present by default if X is detected, must be the last term. By using +=, you have made unnamed the last term. A better setting would be

set clipboard^=unnamed

which places unnamed first in the option string.

Something else you might try, since an empty .vimrc works for you, is to do a binary prune of your .vimrc file. That is, put a :finish command as the first line in your .vimrc file, restart vim and verify that copying works, then move the :finish command about halfway down your .vimrc file, restart vim and try again. Repeat, trying to narrow down the region that contains the problematic command(s). Commenting-out lines works instead of the :finish command, too. You can keep your .vimrc file open in one Vim while restarting a different Vim to make the whole process go a little faster.

Answer 2

How do you copy things from Vim? Vim uses several registers where the +-Register is used to share information with the systems clipboard. For instance, to copy a whole line into systems clipboard use

"+Y

After that just use CTRL-V to paste like always.

Answer 3

Press the shift key when selecting text if you have mouse support enabled on vim. The normal selection (without shift) enables VISUAL mode. Using shift passes mouse events to your terminal emulator.

Answer 4

From one of your comments:

I've seen this suggestion in several places, but it doesn't work for me.

Solution:

You probably don't have vim installed with the clipboard feature enabled, which is required for being able to copy/paste to/from the system clipboard.

If you type vim --version at the command line, you'll probably see -clipboard in the features list. Try compiling vim from source with the following option:

 ./configure --with-features=huge

(include other options you need) and then proceed with make and make install. Now you should see a +clipboard in your features list and you can yank to the system clipboard using

"+y

and paste from the system clipboard using

"+p

Answer 5

About your bonus question: I know it's unsophisticated, but I tend to have apache running on all my machines - physical and virtual - and so I can copy files somewhere in the document tree and have them visible (and downloadable) from all the other machines.

Answer 6

But I like mouse support!

After hunting through the help docs I also found this little gem:

Note: When enabling the mouse in a terminal, copy/paste will use the “* register if there is access to an X-server. The xterm handling of the mouse buttons can still be used by keeping the shift key pressed.

Sure enough, holding shift allows regular old copy paste with PuTTY.