-" The following are commented out as they cause vim to behave a lot
-" differently from regular Vi. They are highly recommended though.
-set showcmd " Show (partial) command in status line.
-set showmatch " Show matching brackets.
-set ignorecase " Do case insensitive matching
-set smartcase " Do smart case matching
-set incsearch " Incremental search
-set autowrite " Automatically save before commands like :next and :make
-set hidden " Hide buffers when they are abandoned
-" set mouse=a " Enable mouse usage (all modes)
-
-" Source a global configuration file if available
-if filereadable("/etc/vim/vimrc.local")
- source /etc/vim/vimrc.local
+" reading and writing files {{{1
+set writebackup " write a backup file before overwriting a file
+set backup " keep a backup after owerwriting a file
+set backupdir=$HOME/.vim/backupdir
+
+set undofile " persistent undo history
+set undodir=$HOME/.vim/backupdir
+
+set autowrite " automatically write a file when leaving a modified buffer
+
+" command line editing {{{1
+set history=500 " how many command lines are remembered
+set wildmode=longest:full " specifies how command line completion works
+set wildmenu " command-line completion shows a list of matches
+
+" various {{{1
+set virtualedit=block " let cursor move past last char in <C-V> mode
+set viminfo='100,<50,s10,h,n~/.vim/viminfo " viminfo defaults but save file in .vim
+
+" plugins {{{1
+" airline {{{2
+let g:airline_detect_whitespace=2
+let g:airline_whitespace_symbol = 'Ξ'
+let g:airline_linecolumn_prefix = '␊ '
+let g:airline_left_sep = '▶'
+let g:airline_right_sep = '◀'
+let g:airline#extensions#tabline#enabled = 1
+
+" Gundo {{{2
+nnoremap <F7> :GundoToggle<CR>
+" fugitive {{{2
+nmap <silent> <leader>dd :tab split \| Gdiff \| wincmd h<CR>
+
+" NERDTree {{{2
+" open/close NERDTree with \e
+nmap <Leader>e :NERDTreeToggle<CR>
+nmap <F6> :NERDTreeToggle<CR>
+" <space> to open files/dirs
+let NERDTreeMapActivateNode='<space>'
+" open NERDTree if no files were selected
+autocmd vimenter * if !argc() | NERDTree | endif
+" close vim if only NERDTree is open
+autocmd bufenter * if (winnr("$") == 1 && exists("b:NERDTreeType") && b:NERDTreeType == "primary") | q | endif
+
+" synastic {{{2
+let g:syntastic_enable_highlighting = 0
+let g:syntastic_error_symbol='E'
+let g:syntastic_style_error_symbol='S'
+let g:syntastic_warning_symbol='W'
+let g:syntastic_style_warning_symbol='S'
+let g:syntastic_always_populate_loc_list=1
+nmap <silent> <leader>y :SyntasticCheck<cr>
+
+if ! &diff
+ let g:syntastic_check_on_open=1