Basic vimrc to level the playing field...

vimgolf.vimrc

" http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/starting.html#vimrc

set nocompatible        " use vim defaults
set scrolloff=3         " keep 3 lines when scrolling
set ai                  " set auto-indenting on for programming

set showcmd             " display incomplete commands
set nobackup            " do not keep a backup file
set number              " show line numbers
set ruler               " show the current row and column

set hlsearch            " highlight searches
set incsearch           " do incremental searching
set showmatch           " jump to matches when entering regexp
set ignorecase          " ignore case when searching
set smartcase           " no ignorecase if Uppercase char present

set visualbell t_vb=    " turn off error beep/flash
set novisualbell        " turn off visual bell

set backspace=indent,eol,start  " make that backspace key work the way it should
set runtimepath=$VIMRUNTIME     " turn off user scripts, https://github.com/igrigorik/vimgolf/issues/129

syntax on               " turn syntax highlighting on by default
filetype on             " detect type of file
filetype indent on      " load indent file for specific file type

set t_RV=               " http://bugs.debian.org/608242, http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/browse_thread/thread/9770ea844cec3282

you need to set tabstop=8 otherwise people set tabstops and then use :retab to turn tabs into non-8 char tabs

Replace the 2 filetype lines with:
filetype plugin indent on

Tested and works fine.

You should also probably force indentation to 2-spaces (on my machine "vimgolf put" has it set to 1-tab)
set shiftwidth=2

@vincentisambart i don't think you do want to set shiftwidth. With the setting I said, the proper file settings will be picked up from vim.

@bishboria, @vincentisambart: went back and forth on this earlier and decided to strip out any/all customizations to do with tabbing, spacing, etc. This is a touchy subject for many VIM users, hence opted out for the VIM defaults, to be fair to everyone.

We'll add some extra logic + language to the challenge create page to get the creators of challenges to take this into account.

@bishboria: thanks for tip, will update.

@igrigorik No problem :) Loving vimgolf, so thanks for all your effort!

Any chance of making those filetype changes soon?

@bishboria: the config above have been life for a few days now! unless something is not picking up the differences...?

ex: http://vimgolf.com/challenges/4d1a1c36567bac34a9000002.json

Hmm. I'm still not picking up the correct indentation rules... I'll need to investigate my vim setup. Thanks again.

How about set encoding=utf-8? I needed to type this manually for this golf: http://www.vimgolf.com/challenges/4d1da368de2f897c2a000114 Or am I missing something here?

Hmm, is your shell (whatever you use, bash, etc) set to UTF-8? If so, vim should pick it up automatically.

@igrigorik: I’m using iTerm 2 on Mac OS X, and I have Profiles › My Profile › Terminal › Character Encoding set to “Unicode (UTF-8)”. Not sure what else I need to do.

Edit: In Terminal.app it works fine. Any ideas?

set relativenumber is always convenient. I don't think vimgolf is about manual counting, anyways.

Hello,
I think, it would be better not to set ignorecase in vimgolf vimrc. There are challenge like : http://vimgolf.com/challenges/51b4e3b920faf70002000001 when it needs to search o and not O. That have to work like fo keystrokes. I have a solution, this:

   ?o\C<NL>qz0<C-A>nq12@z?r<NL>18@z?i<NL>16@z-<C-A>ZZ 

that needs 2 additional keys, the \ key and C key to specify lowercase for back search ? command to search o and not O
Best regards !

Should we set nowrap? Otherwise, I could, for example, resize my terminal window and do 5gj to go down five display lines so I end up in the right column of a line three lines down in three keystrokes where it might otherwise take four.

Hacked by Filename Completion.
It will be game break.

set wildignore+=*

" or
inoremap <C-X><C-F> <Nop>

I have an issue with auto indentation that sometimes happens when editing code-like text in vimgolf. I follow keystroke for keystroke somebody else's solution, but I am forced to add extra keystrokes to correct indentation. It seems to affect me differently than others. Tried editing my .vimrc, but that doesn't seem to affect vimgolf. Not sure what the solution is here.

I'm on Pop!_OS (basically Ubuntu).

Hacked by Filename Completion.
It will be game break.

set wildignore+=*

" or
inoremap <C-X><C-F> <Nop>

+1

Hacked by Filename Completion.
It will be game break.

set wildignore+=*

" or
inoremap <C-X><C-F> <Nop>

Where can I find the .vimrc file to apply this change?
@igrigorik is there going to be any update?