Vim, the editor

Other text editors

Your typical editor works like this…

• When you type almost any key, the corresponding character (letter, number, symbol, or whitespace) appears at the cursor
• Certain special keys do special operations (control, alt, command, super)
• For a GUI app, you can/must click menus for other functionality

Vim is different

Vim has modes

Normal

for almost everything except typing! Insert

for typing Visual

for highlighting a region to operate on

(and others you don’t need to know about)

The keyboard is your friend

For the impatient

• Start vim in terminal: $ vim test.txt
• Press i to enter insert mode
• Type to your heart’s content
• When you’re done, hit Esc to leave insert mode
• Then type :w to save your document
• Then type :q to quit
  • if you have unsaved changes, vim will complain
  • to save, see previous, or do :wq in one step
  • to discard changes and quit, do :q!

Normal mode

Now that you’ve seen that you can actually type in vim, let’s learn about the magic of Normal mode!

Moving around (“motions”)

Stepping

• by line: up k, down j
• by character: forward l, backward h
• by word: forward w, backward b
• by sentence: forward ), backward (
• by paragraph: forward }, backward {

Moving around (“motions”)

Jumping

• to start/end of line: 0/$
• to first/last line of file: gg/G
• to a character on current line: f/F{char}
• to identical word: */#
• to line number: :{#} or {#}G
• to top, middle, or bottom of screen: {HML}

Insert

• starting right where you are: i
• starting at the next character – a
• starting at the end of the current line – A
• starting at the beginning of the line – I
• starting on the next line – o
• starting on the previous line – O
• enter ‘replace mode’ right where you are – R
• replace current character with one other character – r{char}
• delete current character, then enter insert mode – s
• delete current line, then enter insert mode – S

Delete (really, this is “cut”)

• delete character under cursor: x
• delete character before cursor: X
• delete to end of line: D
• delete entire line: dd
• delete # lines: d#d
• delete over some motion: d{motion}
• use backspace in insert mode (like every other editor)

Copy and paste

• copy (“yank”) – y{motion}
• copy (“yank”) –
• paste after cursor – p
• paste before cursor – P

Search and replace

• we already saw some of this with jumping
• search for arbitrary expression – /{expression}
• search and replace
  • :s/foo/bar/
  • :s/foo/bar/g
  • :%s/foo/bar/g

Do-overs!

• undo change: u
• repeat last change: .
• redo last undone change: Ctrl-r

Extras

• toggle case – ~

Saving and quitting

• save and quit: ZZ (or :wq)
• save and keep editing: :w
• quit without saving: :q
• really quit without saving: :q!

Tabs

• open another file in new tab: :tabe <file>
• change tabs: forward gt, backward gT

Basic editing

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

Operators and repetition

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

Yank & paste

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

Searching

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

Marks & macros

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

Various motions

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

Various commands

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

Places to learn

• The pictorial cheatsheets used in this slide
  • Color PDF of all 8 diagrams
• A nice introduction with some clear prose
• A popular portal to the rest of the vim universe
• A bit heavy-handed, but if you really like learning by watching over someone’s shoulder…
• Lastly, if you just want to learn how to start and quit vim all in the first page of tips