Make Vim look good

To make Vim look good, you can install extra color schemes. For the
purposes of this demo, I've chosen two: Solarized (the most widely used
color scheme) and Molokai (a port of the Textmate/Sublime color scheme).
Feel free to pick one by changing the

    colorscheme solarized

line to something else.

To make Solarized look the best, you're going to want to install the
corresponding colorscheme for your terminal:

    http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized

If you can't do this, just uncomment the line that says

    let g:solarized_termcolors=256

We're also installing a plugin called vim-airline that makes Vim look
pretty awesome. It adds tons of information to your Vim and adds style
too. It works best if you have what's called a "patched font". There are
a number of patched fonts that you can install, but the one I recommend
is

    https://github.com/abertsch/Menlo-for-Powerline

Once you've downloaded all the .ttf files, change your font in your
terminal emulator.

NOTE FOR WINDOWS USERS (you poor souls...)

Setting up Solarized and vim-airline is basically impossible on PuTTY.
Instead, you should go download mobaXterm, which is an SSH client that
lets you a) comes pre-installed with Solarized colors and b) lets you
choose a patched font:

    http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

For detailed installation instructions and a sneak peak at some of it's
more powerful features, see here

    http://blog.zimmerman.io/2014/09/28/setting-up-mobaxterm-for-ssh-on-windows/

vimrc.vim

@@ -8,6 +8,11 @@ call vundle#begin()
 
 Plugin 'gmarik/Vundle.vim'
 
+" ----- Making Vim look good ------------------------------------------
+Plugin 'altercation/vim-colors-solarized'
+Plugin 'tomasr/molokai'
+Plugin 'bling/vim-airline'
+
 call vundle#end()
 
 filetype plugin indent on
@@ -23,3 +28,35 @@ set hlsearch
 syntax on
 
 set mouse=a
+
+" ----- Plugin-Specific Settings --------------------------------------
+
+" ----- altercation/vim-colors-solarized settings -----
+" Toggle this to "light" for light colorscheme
+set background=dark
+
+" Uncomment the next line if your terminal is not configured for solarized
+"let g:solarized_termcolors=256
+
+" Set the colorscheme
+colorscheme solarized
+
+
+" ----- bling/vim-airline settings -----
+" Always show statusbar
+set laststatus=2
+
+" Fancy arrow symbols, requires a patched font
+" To install a patched font, run over to
+"     https://github.com/abertsch/Menlo-for-Powerline
+" download all the .ttf files, double-click on them and click "Install"
+" Finally, uncomment the next line
+"let g:airline_powerline_fonts = 1
+
+" Show PASTE if in paste mode
+let g:airline_detect_paste=1
+
+" Show airline for tabs too
+let g:airline#extensions#tabline#enabled = 1
+
+