Beginner's Minimal Vim Config

.vimrc

" This is a beginners .vimrc or init.vim file
" with sane defaults so you can be productive at the start.
" Not designed to work with Neovim.

" Sane defaults.
source $VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim
set mouse=a         " Enable mouse
set clipboard+=unnamed,unnamedplus  " Use desktop's clipboard
set hidden          " Allow switch buffers if current not saved
set noswapfile autoread " Swap file annoyance.  Use git.

" indentation default.  These are overriden by various filetypes
set softtabstop=2   " number of spaces in tab when editing
set shiftwidth=2    " number of spaces to use for autoindent
set expandtab       " expand tab to spaces so that tabs are spaces

" view format
set number          " show line numbers
let g:netrw_liststyle=3  " Tree style netrw
set nowrap          " No word wrap

" Auto-install plugin manager.  Don't worry about understanding this.
" If this causes issues, remove and follow directions at https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug#installation
if empty(glob('~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim'))
  silent !curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim
  autocmd VimEnter * PlugInstall --sync | source $MYVIMRC
endif

call plug#begin()
Plug 'kien/ctrlp.vim'
call plug#end()

" <leader> is space key
let mapleader=' '
let maplocalleader=mapleader

" Some basic starter mappings for managing files.
" (Replace these with fzf.vim plugin commands at some point)
" Browse files from current directory using file exporer
nnoremap <leader>e :e .<cr>
" Search files
nnoremap <leader>f :CtrlP<cr>
" pick another buffer to switch to.
nnoremap <leader>b :CtrlPBuffer<cr>
" recently read files
nnoremap <leader>o :CtrlPMRU<cr>
" Close current buffer
nnoremap <leader>x :bp\|bd#<cr>

To upload to a server:

url=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/mikeslattery/e54cc77d69258a59bbb104dded7b5b2d/raw/6698d0bd1789590b07837327bd12c60ee705db12/.vimrc
curl -o /tmp/.vimrc "$url"
scp /tmp/.vimrc server:.