When typing an html document, you can automatically close html tags using omni completion. For example, you may type <li>example</ then press Ctrl-x Ctrl-o to automatically finish typing the tag so the text reads <li>example</li>.
With the following abbreviation in your vimrc, you can simplify this process:
:iabbrev </ </<C-X><C-O>
With this abbreviation, you can simply type </ then press Space to automatically complete the tag.
You may find that sometimes you want to type </ without invoking the abbreviation. If that happens a lot, you may prefer the following abbreviation so you have to enter <// to invoke tag completion:
:iabbrev <// </<C-X><C-O>
Also you can remap Ctrl-x Ctrl-o to Ctrl-Space using:
:imap <C-Space> <C-X><C-O>
See also[]
References[]
Comments[]
This autocmd and insert mode mappings will cause > to auto-complete the tag in insert mode, ><CR> to auto-complete and put your cursor on an indented new line, and ><Leader> to cancel autocompleteion for those special times.
function s:CompleteTags() inoremap <buffer> > ></<C-x><C-o><Esc>:startinsert!<CR><C-O>?</<CR> inoremap <buffer> ><Leader> > inoremap <buffer> ><CR> ></<C-x><C-o><Esc>:startinsert!<CR><C-O>?</<CR><CR><Tab><CR><Up><C-O>$ endfunction autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.html,*.js,*.xml call s:CompleteTags()
I suspect the abbreviation is not very helpful in practice because it won't work if you type, for example, abc</ (it only works if you enter insert mode to type the abbreviation, or if the abbreviation follows whitespace. Perhaps a mapping like
:inoremap <F8> </<C-X><C-O>
might be more helpful? You would press F8 to add a closing tag while in insert mode. JohnBeckett 10:25, April 26, 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, but it would work if you end your tag on a new line by itself. I agree this is not very useful though for the reason you give. To stay more in the spirit of the original, perhaps :inoremap <lt>/ </<C-X><C-O> would be better? This would always fire when closing a tag of course, which could be annoying to some. --Fritzophrenic 13:54, April 26, 2010 (UTC)
Use <Leader> instead <C-Space> to avoid conflicts (learn more about Leader key in ":help leader")--Devgutt28 (talk) 15:11, August 2, 2012 (UTC)
I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I added on to Fritzophrenic's version with :inoremap <lt>/ </<C-x><C-o><Esc>==gi so the new tag properly indents itself. == re-indents the current line (also moving the cursor), and gi returns the cursor to its location before the re-indent and enters insert mode. (September 2, 2017)