Forcing highlighter to html in VI when it fails to recognize an input file

Question

I'm having trouble editing HTML in an older version of VI(M). VIM - Vi IMproved 6.3 (2004 June 7, compiled [...] 2005). When reading .sh shell scripts there is no problem, though.

It doesn't recognize html files for syntax highlighting. Is there any to force a particular language interpretation even if the editor doesn't recognize it? In emacs, M-x html-mode informs the editor what language you're actually editing.

I can't upgrade because this is running in servers.

Answer 1

Assuming Vim is installed correctly the command is :set filetype=html, see :help filetype for more information.

You can shorten it to :set ft=html.

Happy retro-vimming!

Answer 2

You can force vim to use the language you want with

:setf html

See