vim.md

VIM Basics

• VIM = Vi IMproved
• We will follow this lecture from MIT.
• Notation: Control + V is written in one of 3 ways:
  • ^V
  • ctrl-v
  • <C-V>

Files, windows and tabs

• Open a file with vim {filename}.
• VIM also has a model for windows, tabs and files (buffers).
• VIM maintains a set of open buffers, which means files for us.
• It can have tabs too, which can contain windows.
• But there need not be a 1:1 mapping b/w windows and buffers.
• A window is just a view into a buffer (file).
• A buffer can be open in 0 or more windows at a time.
• By default, Vim opens with a single tab, which contains a single window.

VIM modes

• VIM is a modal editor and has multiple operating modes, e.g., for reading, editing or writing code.
• Keys and key-combinations work differently in different modes.
• Vim is programmable (with Vimscript and also other languages like Python), and Vim’s interface itself is a programming language: keystrokes are commands, and these commands are composable.
• Vim avoids use of the mouse, because it’s too slow; Vim even avoids using the arrow keys because it requires too much movement. The end result is an editor that can match the speed at which you think.
• Type vim on your terminal and it starts up in normal mode, which allows normal file navigation.

Mode Switching

Use the following key combinations to enter another mode from Normal mode:

• i: Insert
• shift-r or R: Replace
• v: Visual Selection
• shift-v: Visual Selection Line
• ctrl-v: Visual Selection Block
• :: Command-line mode

Press <ESC> to go back to Normal mode from another mode, or to discard an unwanted incompletely typed command. If <ESC> is inconvenient to reach, you can bind <CAPSLOCK> for this purpose instead.

Normal mode - Navigation

• Navigate via the h, j, k and l keys (arrow keys also work, but hjkl are better reachable).
  • h: left
  • j: down
  • k: up
  • l: right
• w moves the cursor forward to the start of the next word, e moves it forward by a word to the end of the word, and b moves it backward by one word to the beginning of the word.
• 0 moves to the beginning of the line, $ moves to the end of the line, ^ (carat) key moves to the first non-empty character of the line.
• ctrl-u takes you up and ctrl-d takes you down in the buffer.
• G moves you to the end of the buffer and gg moves you to the beginning.
• ctrl-g shows your current location in the file and file status.
• :{number} followed by <ENTER> or simply pressing{number}G navigates to line {number}.
• L moves you to the lowest line on the screen, M for middle of screen and H for highest line on the screen.
• f{char} finds the next occurence of the character {char} in that line, F{char} finds the previous occurence in that line. Use ; and , to navigate matches.
• t{char} jumps to right before the next occurence of {char} in that line and T{char} jumps to right after the previous occurence of {char} in the line.
• % locates the next parentheses in the current line and jumps to the other matching parentheses if you are already at one.

Editing

• i enters Insert mode and allows editing text.
• a enters Append mode, which is same as Insert but positions the cursor 1 ahead of current position.
• o (O) opens a new line below (above) the current line, takes the cursor to the new line and starts Insert mode.
• u undoes the last command, U fixes a whole line, and ctrl-r is Redo.
• x deletes the current character (same as dl).
• r{char} replaces the current character with {char}.
• d is delete but is paired with a navigation command, e.g. hjkl or wbe etc. to delete characters/words etc. d actually cuts the text and stores it in a Vim register, so it can be pasted later. dd deletes the current line.
• c is change. Paired with navigation keys it deletes accordingly like d, but then puts you in insert mode to allow changing. cc deletes the line and puts in Insert mode.
• s opens Insert mode to substitute the current character (same as cl).
• y is copy (yank) and is paired with a navigation command to copy text. yy copies the current line.
• p pastes copied text right after the current character. If you delete a line with dd or yank it with yy, then p pastes it in the next line.
• ~ flips the case of the current character or the current selection.
• . repeats the last editing comand in VIM.

Selection

• Press v to enter visual mode.
• Using navigation commands in visual mode will select everything in between.
  • Selected text can be copied with y and pasted elsewhere if needed.
  • Selected text can be deleted with d or x in visual mode.
  • Selected text can be changed with c or s in visual mode.
  • Selected text can be written to file with :w {filename}. When you press : with text selected, you will see :'<,'> appear at the bottom of the screen. You should type w {filename} right after it to save the selected text to a file.
• shift-v is visual line mode and selects whole lines.
• ctrl-v is visual block mode and selects rectangular blocks.

Counts

You can combine commands with counts to repeat them. Examples:

• 4j moves down 4 times.
• Press v to enter visual mode and then pressing 3e selects till the end of the third word from the cursor.
• 7dw deletes the next 7 words; d7w also deletes 7 words.

The general format is: {command} [number] {motion}

Modifiers

• Modifiers change the meaning of navigation commands a bit.
  • i: inside; ci[ means change inside but not including the square brackets []. E.g., you can use it if you are positioned inside a markdown file on n in [link] in the text: this is example text and [link](www.google.com). It'll delete link and put you in Insert mode. Similarly, di[.
  • a: "around" works similar to inside, except da[ deletes both the square brackets and the contents in it.

Commands

Command-line mode commands begin with : and are finished by pressing <ENTER>.

Help

• Use :help {command} or :h {command} to get help on another command, key or key combination. Use :q to close the help window. E.g., :h w or :h CTRL-W.

Files, windows and tabs

• :q or :quit terminates the current window. VIM will terminate if you terminate the last window.
• :q! forces termination even if you have unsaved changes to the open file.
• :qa is quit all windows.
• :w (write) command saves a file. You can also provide a filename to save to: :w {filename}.
• :wq performs a save and quit.
• :e {filename}: Open {filename} for editing.
• :ls shows open buffers.
• :sp (:vsp) splits open a new window horizontally (vertically) in the current tab.
• :tabnew opens a new tab.
• gt goes to the next tab (loops around from last to first tab).
• ctrl-w paired with up, down, j or k allows switching between windows.

Search and substitution

• /{regex} searches for the {regex} wrapping around the file if it hits EOF and takes the cursor to the first instance found. Pressing n (N) takes you to the next (previous) instance of {regex}. Adding \c like /{regex}\c allows you to ignore case for this particular search.
• :s is the substitute command (docs).
  • :s/foo/bar/g: Find each occurrence of 'foo' (in the current line only) and replace it with 'bar'.
  • :%s/foo/bar/g: Find each occurrence of 'foo' (in all lines) and replace it with 'bar'.
  • :%s/foo/bar/gc: Change each 'foo' to 'bar', but ask for confirmation first.
  • :%s/\<foo\>/bar/gc: Change only whole words exactly matching 'foo' to 'bar'; ask for confirmation.
  • :5,12s/foo/bar/g: Change each 'foo' to 'bar' for all lines from line 5 to line 12 (inclusive).
  • %s/\[.*\](\(.*\))/\1/g: Replace named Markdown links with plain URLs.
  • The g flag means global – each occurrence in the line is changed, rather than just the first.
• :/{regex} also searches for all patterns matching the {regex} just like /{regex}. Can also append flags /g etc. like with substitute.

History

• q: shows your command history.
• : followed by up or down keys lets you search through your command history.

Other commands

• :!{cmd} lets you execute external commands on your terminal from vim. Examples:
  • :!ls
  • :!mkdir {dirname}
• :r {filename} retrieves the contents of {filename} and places them below the cursor line.
  • You can also read the output of an external command this way, e.g., :r !ls puts the output of ls command below the cursor line.
• Completion:
  • While typing commands, you can press CTRL-D to show possible completions.
  • Press <TAB> to complete with the first possible completion and repeat to cycle through the completions.

Setting options

• :set {option} allows you to set an option.
• In general, you can use either the long or the short option name.
• Prepend "no" to switch an option off.
• Examples:
  • :set ic sets ignorecase during search and substitution. To disable it :set noic.
  • :set hls or :set hlsearch sets hlsearch for highlighting search results. To disable, :set nohls or :nohlsearch.
  • :set is or :set incsearch sets incremental search to jump to the first result while you type the search command. Disable with :set nois.

Configuring VIM

• Can be configured via a plain-text configuration file: ~/.vimrc (containing Vimscript commands).
• See a starter .vimrc file here.

Extending Vim

• There are tons of plugins for extending Vim.
• You do not need to use a plugin manager for Vim (since Vim 8.0). Instead, you can use the built-in package management system.
• Simply create the directory ~/.vim/pack/vendor/start/ and put plugins in there (e.g. via git clone).

Here are some good plugins:

• ctrlp.vim: fuzzy file finder
• ack.vim: code search
• nerdtree: file explorer
• vim-easymotion: magic motions

Check out Vim Awesome for more awesome Vim plugins.

Vim-mode in other programs

Many tools support Vim emulation. The quality varies from good to great; depending on the tool, it may not support the fancier Vim features, but most cover the basics pretty well.

• For Vim bindings in shells:
  • For bash, use set -o vi.
  • For zsh, use bindkey -v.
• Additionally, you can set your terminal editor to be Vim with export EDITOR=vim. This is the environment variable used to decide which editor is launched when a program wants to start an editor. For example, git will use this editor for commit messages.

Macros

Vim allows configuring macros (even recursive ones). See the Macros section here for a brief tutorial.

Resources

• vimtutor is a tutorial that comes installed with Vim.
• Type :help user-manual for more topics in Vim.
• Vim Adventures is a game to learn Vim.
• Vim Tips Wiki.
• Vim Advent Calendar has various Vim tips.
• Vim Golf is code golf" but where the programming language is Vim’s UI.
• Vi/Vim Stack Exchange.
• Vim Screencasts.
• Practical Vim (book).