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+Today I was toying with something absolutely not work related and I wanted to
+share it with somebody to show how awesome the vim text editor can be.
+
+First though, I really would like to thank Bram Moolenaar for contributing such
+a useful tool to the world. It may not be the easiest thing in the world to
+learn, but once you've got even the most basic functionality figured out, you
+can do so much more than other editors will allow. That all goes without even
+saying how cool its interface is.  If you realy like vim, you should head on
+over to http://www.vim.org/index.php[his website] and buy a
+http://www.freewear.org/?org=Vim[tshirt],
+http://www.vim.org/stickers.php[sticker], or a
+http://www.vim.org/posters.php[poster].
+
+What I was dabbling with was vim colors for syntax highlighting. It turns out
+that the stock install of vim for Arch linux comes with almost 200 color
+schemes. I really wanted to see them all but didn't want to have to keep typing
+":colors schemename". That is a lot of repeat key presses after all, something
+we Linux folk really are not fond of when faced with a situation that a
+computer can handle for us (automation - what a novel idea).
+
+After some searching, I discovered
+http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Switch_color_schemes#Switching_colors[this vim
+script] that will change your color scheme forwards or backwards by pressing F8
+or Shift+F8, respectively. Really neat, but not super automated still. Who
+wants to set this sucker to a timer and watch it switch every 200 milliseconds?
+I do I do I do!
+
+That vim script provides a few functions that are bound to the afforementioned
+hotkeys. The function we are immediately concerned with is called
+_NextColor_. This will switch the color scheme to the next in the list.
+
+Here's where vim gets really cool, even though it already is.
+
+It turns out that there is a list in this vim script that is a statically coded
+array of scheme names, so if you have more themes installed than those listed
+in the array, you're out of luck unless you manually add them. Now, at this
+point we could probably have vim run a shell command and massage the output to
+make an array for us at runtime, but where's the fun in that (that's just a
+little TOO automated for the purposes of this article)? I want to rock some vim
+find and replace regex!
+
+
+[[inserting-shell-command-output]]
+== Inserting Shell Command Output
+
+So now, the first thing we're going to do is insert the output of a shell
+command to our vim file, specificall +ls -1+. When in command mode, run
+
+----
+:read !ls -1 /usr/share/vim/vim73/colors/
+----
+
+This should insert a metric bitt load (teehee) of lines if you have very
+many color schemes.
+
+
+[[ranges-in-regex]]
+== Ranges in Regex
+
+From here, we want to massage the data with a few vim find and replace regexes.
+Establish the line that your file list ends at. For me, this was line 207, but
+this very likely won't be the case for you. Move the cursor to the first line
+and run the following in command mode
+
+----
+:.,207s/\.vim//
+----
+
+This will do a find and replace on the text range starting where the cursor is
+currently (the .) and ending at line 207 (the 207). After that it's just a
+standard regex substitution. This should chop off the '.vim' at the end of each
+filename.
+
+Next, we need to remove the new lines, comma delimit, and encase in single
+quotes to match the array format. Again, place your cursor at the first line of
+your list. Remember the line number of the last line in the list?
+
+----
+:.,207s/\(.*\).vim\n/'\1', /
+----
+
+In this cryptic regex, we replace from the current line (the .) to line 207 any
+line containing .vim with a line break after it (the .vim\n) with the text
+preceeding the .vim ( captured by +<\(.*\)+), encasing that value with single
+quotes and ending with a comma space (the +'\1',+) encase the entire string
+with a [ ] and you'll be set. Just erase the old array set your new one to
++s.mycolors+ near the top.
+
+
+[[setting-the-rotate-timer]]
+== Setting the Rotate Timer
+
+Now there's one piece left: set the timer. In command mode, do the following
+and hit enter
+
+----
+:while 1 | sleep 1000m | call NextColor(1) | endwhile
+----
+
+That will rotate through every theme you just added to your array every 1000
+milliseconds. Just change the +1000m+ to whatever you want to make it update at
+different intervals.
+
+Hello worthless but super awesome functionality!
+
+----
+:while 1 | sleep 1000m | call NextColor(0) | endwhile
+----
+
+
+Category:Linux
+Category:Vim
+
+
+// vim: set syntax=asciidoc: