Using vim color schemes with Putty

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created June 29, 2008 · complexity basic · author Timkebox · version 7.0

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I am using PuTTY in Windows to access a Unix box, and the Terminal-type string in PuTTY is set to xterm. I wanted to use Vim's color schemes. I tried many different things with no decent result until I found the following code in Vim's help. After inserting the following lines in my vimrc, I was able to use all the color schemes defined by Vim.

For a 16-color display:

if has("terminfo")
  let &t_Co=16
  let &t_AB="\<Esc>[%?%p1%{8}%<%t%p1%{40}%+%e%p1%{92}%+%;%dm"
  let &t_AF="\<Esc>[%?%p1%{8}%<%t%p1%{30}%+%e%p1%{82}%+%;%dm"
else
  let &t_Co=16
  let &t_Sf="\<Esc>[3%dm"
  let &t_Sb="\<Esc>[4%dm"
endif

:help xfree-xterm

For an 8-color display:

if &term =~ "xterm"
  if has("terminfo")
    let &t_Co=8
    let &t_Sf="\<Esc>[3%p1%dm"
    let &t_Sb="\<Esc>[4%p1%dm"
  else
    let &t_Co=8
    let &t_Sf="\<Esc>[3%dm"
    let &t_Sb="\<Esc>[4%dm"
  endif
endif

Comments

 TO DO 

• Can the <Esc> note above be avoided? If not, add note about Ctrl-Q.
• I've modified the tip to avoid it now by using let not set, but I can't test

it. Could somebody else test and remove these comments?

• 'let' doesn't work. changed to 'set'