VIM’ing in Thunderbird

I recently found a great xpi add-on for Thunderbird which allows me to edit emails directly with VIM.

1. Install the External Editor Version xpi plug-in (I used 0.7.4 on Thunderbird 2.0.0.14)

2. Install VIM (or whatever external editor you prefer)

3. Open up the add-on options for Thunderbird and select, say, “C:\Program Files\Vim\vim71\gvim.exe” (and any other mail options you want to integrate with Thunderbird).

4. Fire up a new email and hit control-E to open up your external editor.  When you’re done, close the editor (e.g. :wq for VIM users), then control-ENTER like you always do to fire off the email.  Anything you put in that editor is sucked back up into your Thunderbird email compose Window!