How do I make vim abbreviations work?

Question

I can define new abbreviations no problem: e.g.

:ab Lunix Linux

defines an "Lunix" as an abbreviation for "Linux", as confirmed by the list which appears when I execute :ab.

In a plain text file, such as an empty buffer, this expands correctly, but with some filetypes neither SPACE nor CTRL-] seem to work.

Is there a setting or mapping which might be getting messed up by some of my filetype plugins?

There's probably a really obvious answer to this, but I haven't found it hunting through the :help documentation yet.

Luc Hermitte · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-10 15:18:23Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Could you have installed LaTeX-Suite/the IMAP plugin? It may interfere with mappings and abbreviations.

You may also want to check whether any of the four timeout related settings have been changed.

answered Aug 10 '11 at 15:18

Luc Hermitte
81056

	Yes, turns out IMAP was getting in the way even in non-LaTeX files. I'll have to duplicate any abbreviations I want to use with IMAP() calls as well. – Jez Aug 12 '11 at 9:26
	Not necessary duplicate. If IMAP is always active, you can just write your abbreviations to use IMAP. If not, the easier way would be to write a command that tests `exist('*IMAP')` to uses either `iabbr` or `IMAP()`. – Luc Hermitte Aug 12 '11 at 11:47

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