Basic Vim

Vim seems complicated and it is. The goal is to make things move a little easier for the user. If you can learn the tricks of the trade. Vim becomes something special.

💡 With the ! command you can run Cli commands inside of Vim. Using this we can avoid writing filters. Use something like Rust of Golang instead.

I don't like neovim🤬. It's not going to help me with hacking.

Basic Vim Commands

These commands are the ones required to use and save the files.

:e [file] - Opens a file, where [file] is the name of the file you want opened.
:w - Saves the file you are working on.
:w [file] - Saves the file to a file name were [file]
:wq - Save your file and close Vim
:q! - Quit without saving

Movement Commands

When you use vim the goal is to use the keyboard efficiently. How can we do this? Using the keys to navigate around. Without moving your hands around to arrow keys.

h - moves cursor to the left
l - moves cursor to the right
j - moves cursor down one line
k move cursor up one line
H - put cursor at the top of the screen
M - put cursor in the middle of the screen
L -put cursor at the bottom of the screen
w - put cursor at the start of the next word
b - put cursor at the start of the previous word
e - put cursor at the end of a word
0 - place cursor at the beginning of a line
$ - place cursor at the end of a line
) - start of the next sentence
( - start of the previous sentence
{ - start next paragraph or block
} - start previous paragraph or block
Ctrl + f - one page forward
Ctrl + b - one page back
gg - start of file
G - end of file

Editing Commands

yank - copy
put - paste
y - yank
p - put
dd - delete single line
yy - copies a single line

💬 You can paste anything copied. If it is highlighted or copied via yy. With movement commands you can add the number of times to complete that task. For example, 5yy copies 5 lines.

yy - copies a line
yw - copies a word
y$ - copies from where cursor s to the end of a line
v - highlight one character at a time using arrow buttons of the h,k,j,l buttons
V - Highlights one line, and movement keys can allow you to highlight additional lines
p - paste what is copied
d - deletes highlighted text
dd - deletes line of text
dw - deletes a word
D - deletes everything from where cursor is to the end of the line
d0 - deletes everything from where cursor is to the beginning of the line
dgg - deletes everything from where cursor is to the beginning of the file
dG - deletes everything from where cursor is to the end of the file
x - deletes a single character
u - undo last operation. I do not understand this u# allows you to undo multiple actions
Ctrl + r - redo last undo
. - repeats the last action

💬 Using Vim you can search your text, find and replace text within your document. If you opt to replace multiple instances of the same keyword or phrase, you can set Vim up to require or not require you to confirm each replacement depending on how you put in the command.

/[keyword] - searches for text in the document where keyword is whatever keyword, phrase or string of characters you're looking for.
?[keyword] - searches previous text for your keyword, phrase or character string
n - searches your text again in whatever direction you last search was
N - searches your text again in the opposite direction
:%s/[pattern]/[replacement]/g - replaces all occurrences of a pattern without confirming each one
:%s/[pattern]/[replacement]/gc - replaces all occurrences of a pattern and confirms each one.

Working With Multiple Files

💬 You can also edit more than one text file at a time. Vim gives you the ability to either split your screen to show more than one file at a time, or you can switch back and forth between documents. Document === buffers.

:bn - switch to next buffer
:bp - switch to previous buffer
:bd - close a buffer
:sp [filename] - opens new file and splits your screen horizontally to show more than one buffer
:vsp [filename] - opens a new file and splits your screen vertically to show more than one buffer
:ls - list all open buffers
Ctrl + ws - split window horizontally
Ctrl + wv - split window vertically
Ctrl + ww - switch between windows
Ctrl + wq - quit a window
Ctrl + wh - moves cursor to the window to the left
Ctrl + wl - moves cursor to the window to the right
Ctrl + wj - moves cursor to the window below the current window
Ctrl + wk - move cursor to the window above the one you are in

Marking Text In Visual Mode

Visual mode allows you to select a block of text in Vim. Once the block of text is selected. You can use visual commands to perform actions on the selected text. Such as deleting it, copying it, etc.

v - starts visual mode. You can select a range of text and run a command.
V - starts line select visual mode.
Ctrl + v - starts visual block mode. selects columns
Esc - exit visual mode

💬 Once you have selected a range of text. You can now run command on that text.

d - delete marked text
y - yank/copy marked text
> - shift text right
< shift text left

Tab Pages

You can use tabs inside Vim. You can work on multiple files without having to close and save.

:tabedit [file] - opens new tab and will take you to edit [file]
gt - move to next tab
gT - move to previous tab
#gt - move to a specific tab number
:tabs - list all open tabs
:tabclose - close single tab

Sample Vim Workflow Example

Open a new or existing file with vim [filename]
Type i to switch into insert mode so that you can start editing the file
Enter or modify the text in your file
Once you are done. Press the escape key Esc to get out of insert mode and back to command mode
Type :wq to save and exit your file

ProLUG 🐧 Labs Notebook