Vim getting indentation wrong for Python code (with the python-mode Plugin)

Question

As shown in the following screen-cast, I demonstrate the strange behaviors of Vim when it comes to adding comments to Python code. Between Demo 1 and Demo 2, I was only starting the line of comments at different indentation level (inside a class definition).

Demo 1

Demo 2

The problem:

As demonstrated towards the end of screen-cast, only typing : in insert mode will get the indentation right.

An ideal solution would achieve:

That when starting a line of comment, please leave the indentation level correctly;

Answer 1

This sounds like a vim setting issue. Starting with vanilla vim, there is no indenting on each line, when I create a new line. If I create a file called .vimrc in my home directory. i.e. ~/.vimrc and put

filetype indent plugin on

in the file, I get what seems like expected indenting behavior. Does that work for you.

Answer 2

Solution in my case

I commented out the following line, and everything went on fine. No further weird corrections was made to the comments. set smartindent

Other info of my Vim:

For the sake of indentation, here goes the settings:

filetype plugin on
filetype indent on
set autoindent

Also, it has been verified that python-mode is not at fault. With the python-mode or without, set smartindent keeps getting me the problem.

Tentative conclusion:

set smartindent is not working well, probably, with my folding method specified as follows. Such setting is placed in C:/vim/vimfiles/ftplugin/python.vim

setlocal formatoptions=crnqj

Here goes the correspondence of the characters used, yet none of which seems to be a trouble.

• c: Auto-wrap comments using textwidth, inserting the current comment leader automatically.

• r: Automatically insert the current comment leader after hitting <Enter> in Insert mode.

• n: When formatting text, recognize numbered lists. This actually uses the 'formatlistpat' option, thus any kind of list can be used. The indent of the text after the number is used for the next line. The default is to find a number, optionally followed by '.', ':', ')', ']' or '}'. Note that 'autoindent' must be set too. Doesn't work well together with "2". Example:

  1. the first item
     wraps
  2. the second item
  

• q: Allow formatting of comments with "gq". Note that formatting will not change blank lines or lines containing only the comment leader. A new paragraph starts after such a line, or when the comment leader changes.

• j: Where it makes sense, remove a comment leader when joining lines.

Reference to a better framed + answered solution

• Direct answer: Vim automatically removes indentation on Python comments
• Other cited ref:
  • How to configure vim to not put comments at the beginning of lines while editing python files
  • http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Restoring_indent_after_typing_hash

In short, what I observed when editing a Python script is not unique to the "Python filetype" alone. It has to do with the symbol #, aka "hash".