Dreynsen's additions to a basic .vimrc

" prevents vim from emulating the original vi's bugs and limitations
set nocompatible               " enabled when (g)vimrc is found

set backspace=start,indent,eol " make backspace work like 'normal' text editors
set number                     " show line numbers
set showcmd                    " show the command being typed
set ruler                      " always show current position
set tabstop=4                  " width of a tab character in spaces
set softtabstop=4              " defines number of spaces for when adding/remving tabs
set shiftwidth=4               " number of spaces to use for autoindent
set expandtab                  " use spaces instead of tab characters
set autoindent
set smartindent
set hidden                     " allow buffer to be changed without writing to disk
set showmode                   " If in Insert, Replace or Visual mode put a message on the last line
set wildmenu                   " better command autocompletion
set laststatus=2               " always show statusline

" searching related
set incsearch
set hlsearch
set smartcase

syntax enable                  " enable syntax highlighting
set t_Co=256                   " use 256 colours in terminal vim

filetype plugin indent on      " let vim detect filetype and load appropriate scripts

" When editing a file, always jump to the last cursor position
if has("autocmd")
  autocmd BufReadPost *
  \ if line("'\"") > 0 && line ("'\"") <= line("$") |
  \   exe "normal! g'\"" |
  \ endif
endif

" Useful default mappings

"Change directory to the dir of the current buffer
noremap \cd :cd %:p:h<CR>

" clear highlighting on <esc> press
nnoremap <esc> :noh<return><esc>

" Window switching
noremap <c-h> <c-w>h
noremap <c-j> <c-w>j
noremap <c-k> <c-w>k
noremap <c-l> <c-w>l

" Make C-BS and C-Del work like they do in most text editors for the sake of muscle memory
imap <C-BS> <C-W>
imap <C-Del> <esc>Ea<C-W>

" Windows-like copy/cut/paste mappings
" CTRL-V is Paste in insert mode
imap <C-V>              "+gpa
" CTRL-C is Copy, CTRL-X is Cut, in visual mode
vmap <C-C>              "+y
vmap <C-x>              "+d
" Use CTRL-Q to do what CTRL-V used to do
noremap <C-Q>           <C-V>

" best mapping ever - swap ; and :
noremap ; :
noremap : ;