// the find
jordwalke/VimBox
Simple, Modern MacVim Configuration
VimBox is a MacVim configuration that maps common Mac/Sublime keyboard shortcuts onto Vim, bundling NERDTree, ctrl-p, vim-airline, UltiSnips, and a Spacegray theme into a preconfigured distribution. It targets Mac developers who want Vim's editing model without learning Vim's default UI conventions. The project is essentially frozen — last meaningful activity was 2023, and the README itself points you to an unfinished `json` branch as the real future.
The keyboard mapping work is genuinely thoughtful — ⌘+p for fuzzy find, ⌘+/ for comment toggle, and consistent split-navigation keys across NERDTree and ctrl-p are the kind of paper-cuts that usually take months to smooth out yourself. The 'mega-escape' (^+l) that doesn't move the cursor is a small but real improvement over raw Escape. Git difftool and mergetool integration with MacVim is pre-wired and works. The escape hatch for customization (vimrc.custom.before/after, bundlesVimRc.custom) means you're not locked into the defaults.
The project is dead. The `master` branch hasn't moved in years, the author's own README says to use the `json` branch instead, and that branch is also years stale with no release. ctrl-p was superseded by fzf.vim and telescope.nvim; syntastic was superseded by ALE and nvim-lspconfig — the plugin choices are vintage 2015. The JavaScript tooling (JSHint, flow) is a time capsule: no ESLint, no TypeScript, no LSP. Anyone installing this today would immediately need to rip out half the plugin list and start over, at which point you'd have been better off with a modern base like LazyVim or kickstart.nvim.