I love using iTerm2 and Vim on my Mac. Today we are going to have a look at Profile Switching feature that iTerm2 has and how we can combine this with Vim. Recently I wrote about using vim-plug to easily install vim plugins. Using vim-plug I installed the theme “onehalfdark” (Theme link):

# .vimrc
"# Custom VIM File for CABenstein
"## Loading the plugins using vim-plug
call plug#begin()
Plug 'tpope/vim-sensible'
Plug 'sonph/onehalf', { 'rtp': 'vim' }
Plug 'itchyny/lightline.vim'
call plug#end()

"## Theme
colorscheme onehalfdark
let g:airline_theme='onehalfdark'

Now, this is a great basis theme but it uses a custom background color which does not match the color of my iTerm using “Solarized”:

Notice the blue bar around the edges? Let’s take care of this.

Automatic profile switching

iTerm2 has some amazing features. If you’re running a Mac check it out! I will use the the automatic switching that is enabled by installing the shell integrations. Read the docs over at https://iterm2.com/documentation-automatic-profile-switching.html .

Creating a profile

I’m gonna create a custom profile called “VIM” and set the background color to the same color used by onehalfdark. That’s 48,48,48:

Auto switching

Now, remember, for this part the shell integrations will need to be installed. We will add a auto-switch condition on the Advanced tab. Hint: These settings seem to be applied when you closed the preferences screen. So, if you’re testing keep this in mind.

To switch create the trigger &Vim (the capital is important!!!):

Now, when you enter Vim you should see the switching taking place:

And that’s it! To be honest I googled my way up and down because I was not able to get this to work! The issue in the end was that I was using the trigger &vim instead of &Vim. I really hope someone out there that runs in to the same issue will find this post!