iVim

Please enable the keyboard to be used outside of the app

I don’t use this app much, but it’s very well done. I want to own it but my usage doesn’t justify the subscription price at all.

I downloaded this and tried it out. I am a very old time vi user, never really got used to any new features in vim. First problem I had on the iPad was after adding a few lines to a text file, I could not escape from insert mode. Had to quit and delete the app. Now I have to try to find out how to map the tap key to the esc key, and have no clue how to do that. I am using the Apple folding folio keyboard with my iPad and it has no esc key. I am sure there is a way to do it, but it is not obvious.

I've used this a lot and it's pretty robust. An external hardware keyboard is required for serious use; get the on-screen touch keyboard out of sight as quickly as possible. Ipad's sandboxing and limited file storage/access/sharing is annoying but the OS allows enough access to iVim to make it useful. I'm thankful it's available.

The keyboard obscures the command line at the bottom of the screen. When you hide the keyboard, it immediately reappears. Either I’m missing something or the app is somewhat unusable.

ideally, i would have a perfect network connection, and I would just use mosh and work remotely on my linux boxes. But there are numerous dead zones along my (3-hour) train routes. So, ivim lets me work on my files locally with all the vim goodness, upon which I rely utterly. simply put, ivim lets me leave my large laptop at home and just take my iPad mini and a lightweight keyboard on my long commute. Easily one of my top 5 favourite apps. A tip: this is not neovim; so the new-fangled lua-plugins don't work. But I have essentially always found classic plugins and vimscript ways to do things. Ultimately, it is immensely slick-- just about indistinguishable from working on my linux workstation. Love it!

This puts the original port to shame. I have yet to find any limitation. All your plugins are available! A little tricky with getting them installed but once you get the hang of it, 😎. Yhanks for this awesome app!!

I don’t use this app much, but it’s very well done. I want to own it but my usage doesn’t justify the subscription price at all.

there’s so much to love about this port of vim to ios. if you’re looking for something that will just work with the bare elements to do a little bit of code editing via working copy or loving the Files integration. this is where it’s at.

Apple's restrictions around what an iOS app that is published on the App Store is allowed to do make it very hard to build a tool like this with full capability. iVim is about as close as you can get and it does a very good job of bridging native iOS capabilities with standard workflows and tooling. Hardware keyboard capabilities are excellent (although there are some flaws and limitations). Clipboard integration is very good. Integration to the iOS filesystem, cloud filesystems, and remote filesystems is great. It can be launched as the default editor from Files.app, which is wonderful. The shell emulation is a bit wonky and limited due to using an out-of-date scaled-down version of the ios_system framework but it's still miles better than everything else I've tried. The Python interpreter works pretty well with pure Python modules. There's a URL scheme for invoking commands from other apps or shortcuts. There are minor issues: the status line is disabled but the space isn't used for a line of text. The git integration is locked behind a subscription payment and is GUI-only. SSH and SCP capabilities are present but a bit limited. Certain key chords can't be mapped. There's an app focus bug that keeps coming back. pip3 sometimes doesn't work without some manual intervention. I'm happy to give iVim a 5-star review in spite of these things because it's head and shoulders above every text editor available on iOS. It's truly the best editor on the App Store by a long shot. I spend half my day in iVim and adore it. The plugin manager and session restoration capabilities are small one time purchases and well worth it. iVim is absolutely the best way to make full use of your iOS device within App Store