What are some good plugins for developing Java in VIM?

Question

I love vim, but not having things like IntelliSense/Code completion from Eclipse makes it pretty difficult. I know, I know, I should be able to look at method signatures and java docs for the API I am interested in using. I'd love to, but I'd like it to be accessible from my fingertips instead of having to browse the source tree manually or have a JDK reference handy.

What plugins would make this easier?

Answer 1

I tried eclim for a while. It was pretty good, basically it uses eclipse in the background as a kind of engine and provides a plugin to let you use all of eclipses goodness through vim.

http://eclim.org/

Answer 2

Don't write Java in Vim — put Vim inside a Java IDE:

• IdeaVIM for IntelliJ
• viPlugin or Eclim for Eclipse
• jVi or ViEx for NetBeans

I love Vim, but using an IDE for Java is the only way to stay sane. A decent Java IDE will:

• Show invalid syntax or type errors
• Show missing JavaDoc
• Manage import statements for you
• Highlight unused methods and variables
• Safely perform powerful refactorings such as moving methods or renaming classes -- (no, search and replace doesn't cut it, I promise)
• Reformat your code automatically or on-demand

Vim can't do the above, but you can use all the Vim keybindings in a program which does.