Vim font issues

[acidity]

Since all the computers in my school only have vi (vim) or emacs installed by default on their machine, I decided to use and learn vi. (I can use emacs too but let us keep this editor war aside).

Doing a google, I figured out there are two vim that I can use in Mac OS X. I can either start termiinal and use the vim bundled with it. The version is 6.2. Or I can download a proper Mac app from http://www.macvim.org.

So I decided to try both.

The first thing I did was to change the default through .vimrc. So my .vimrc has the entry:

set guifont=Monaco:h12

Now my vim looks differnet in 3 differnet cases. Running Vim.app which gives me something like vim_app.png

If I run it through iTerm, I get like: vim.png

If I run through Terminal.app, I get like: vim_terminal.png

Why all are different? The font rendering in Terminal.app is best according to me but I like Vim.app as I can do some operations from GUI using it.

Is it possible to get clarity like vs.png? (screenshot of my friends Visual Studio)

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Regarding the clarity thing, no - that has to do with the anti-aliasing setting on Mac OS X, which is unable to look like Windows (with ClearType enabled) because ClearType uses sub-pixel rendering only, while Mac OS X always uses anti-aliasing and optional sub-pixel rendering. Some people say the Mac OS X way looks worse than Windows; others say it looks better.

As for the differing renderings using different ways of launching the application, this is due to some obscure bugs in Apple's type handling services, which, for some reason, only affect the GUI and not the Terminal, thus explaining why the Terminal rendering looks the best.

 

[acidity]

That sucks.

So is there any way that I can get clarity of vim in Terminal.app in Vim.app or I am stuck in using some other GUI editors like BBEdit and jEdit (which I dont want as I want to use vim in my school (where I cannot instally my own software), house and at office) where I run two diff distros of Linux and Mac.