The features seen with the command ":version" raised my interest.
I am particularly interested in the features, such as Ruby, Python and Emacs-tags. I cannot find instructions in the manuals. I found a command "--with-features=huge", after some googling, but it does not show how to really install the features. I have used Vim over a year, so I am rather flabbergasted of the features. I have installed things, such as Taglist. What is the main difference to them?
I'm not sure what exactly are you asking. "Vim's features, perhaps all" is a term which can be taken in a very wide context.
If you're interested in scripting, either in vimscript, or Python, Ruby ... download an install vim's standalone installer - it comes with a precompiled support for those. Of course, you still need to have Python, Ruby ... installed.
If you're interested in vim's general features, like editing text, macros, plugins, support for this and that ... i.e. vim in general, well I could only suggest a tutorial off the net or a book. I gave a few links for tutorials below:
Vim Wikia
Vim Tutorial
Vi and Vim editor
Best of vim tips
Quick ref. card
Learning vim
... anyway, the net's full of them
What do you mean under compiling ? I'm not gonna try guessing, but try these:
:help make
:help makeprg
Refine your question.
Personally if you are new to vim I'd just install the binary.
Usually extra vim features are added by custom scripts and plugins rather then by compiling them in. Just install vim and then use the excellent Vim tips wiki to find and add extras you'd like to have.
Good luck :)
The "features" you're referring to are Vim's build-time features. Think of these features as options you can get when you buy a car. For example, many cars come in a 4-door or 2-door version. You need to specifiy up-front which one you want, and you can't change your mind later on unless you want to get a new car. Likewise, you can't change the compile-time options in Vim without building a new binary.
A lot of these features are also mutually exclusive. For example, you can't enable both the motif and gnome versions of the gui simultaneously. (just like you can't have a car that's both 4-door and 2-door)
Also, some of the feature are OS-specific. For example, you aren't going to get the "amiga" feature unless you're running Vim on an Amiga.
That said, most pre-built binaries of Vim that you're likely to come across will have the majority of interesting features enabled. You can use :version to find out which features are enabled in your build of vim. Once you've done that, take a look at :help feature-list (scroll down a bit) for a list of the features along with links to relevant documentation for each feature.