Vim

Vim is a Command Line Interfacetext editor.

Famous StackOverflow answer on learning Vim: Your problem with Vim is that you don’t grok vi

Terminology

• Tabs: containers for windows
• Windows: to view buffers
• Buffers: act as file proxies (1-to-1) and arglist viewer

Command line

Start Vim with no config

vi -u NONE

Start Vim with vertical splits

vi -O <filename>

Movement

Navigation in buffers:

Key	Movement
<CTRL-U>	Up half a screen
<CTRL-D>	Down half a screen
H	Top (high) of screen
M	Middle of screen
L	End (low) of screen
zt	Put cursor to top
zz	Put cursor to middle
zb	Put cursor to bottom
<CTRL-Y>	Up (Backwards) a line
<CTRL-E>	Down (Forwards) a line
<CTRL-B>	Up (Backwards) a full screen
<CTRL-F>	Down (Forwards) a full screen

Modes

Mode	Sample Keystrokes
Normal Mode	Esc
Insert Mode	i, a, c
Visual Mode	v, V, <Ctrl-v>
Command-line Mode	:, /

Operators

c	change
d	delete
y	yank in to register
~	switch case
gu	make lowercase
gU	make uppercase
!	filter to external program
<	shift left
>	shift right
=	indent

Text Objects

Key Pressed	Text Object Selected
aw	a word
iw	inner word
aW	a WORD
iW	inner WORD
ap	a paragraph
ip	inner paragraph
ab	a bracket
ib	inner bracket
at	a tag block
it	inner tag block

NB. Capitals skip punctuation

Motions

Key Pressed	Action Performed
%	go to first matching paren/bracket
[count]+	down to first non-blank char of line
[count]$	to end of line
[count]f/F{char}	to next occurance of {char}
[count]t/T{char}	to before next occurance of {char}
[count]h/j/k/l	left, down, up, right
[count]]m	to beginning of next method
[count]w/W	go a word / WORD to the right
[count]b/B	go a word / WORD to the left
[count]e/E	go to end of word / WORD right

NB. Capitals skip punctuation

Examples of combining count, operator, object and motion

Keys Pressed	Action Performed
6+	6x go down to line start
gUaW	capitalize a WORD
3ce	3x change to word end
4$	4x end of line
d]m	delete to start of next method
%	jump to next paren./bracket

Buffers & Arglist

Buffers are for everything you open in a Vim session. Arglist is the files Vim was supplied with when opened first.

Key	Action
<CTRL-^>	Switch buffers
:bn	Next buffer
:b {filename}	go to buffer with {filename}
:bd	Delete buffer
:buffers	Show all buffers
:n	go to next file (based on arglist)
:arga {filename}	Add {filename} to arglist
:argl {files}	male a local arg copy via {files}
:args	show all args on arglist

Clipboard

From normal mode (press ESC to enter):

Key	Action
v	Start selection (Enables [v]isual mode)
<Shift-v>	Start line selection
<CTRL-v>	Start block selection
yy	yank (copy) current selection
P	paste before
p	paste after
:registers	see what is stored to be pasted

Searching

is carriage return (aka. Enter key).

Key	Action
/{patt}[/]<CR>	search for {patt}
/<CR>	search for last used pattern
?{patt}[?]<CR>	search backwards for {patt}
?<CR>	search backwards for last used pattern
[count]n	repeat search [count] times
[count]N	repeat search backwards [count] times
*	search forward for word under cursor
#	search backward for word under cursor
gd	go to local declaration
:hls!	toggle search highlighting

Marks

is carriage return (aka. Enter key).

Key	Action
m{a-zA-Z}	set a mark at a char of {a-z} or {A-Z}
`{a-zA-z}	jump to mark set at char
:marks	show all marks set
`.	jump to last change

Tags

Key	Action
g<CTRL-]>	Show definitions
<CTRL-]>	Jump to keyword definition
<CTRL-t>	pop from tag stack

Jumplist & Changelist

Jumplist:

Key	Action
<CTRL-O>	Cycle through jumps (backwards)
<CTRL-I>	Cycle through jumps (forwards)
:jumps	List all jumps

Changelist:

Key	Action
g;	Cycle through changes
g,	Cycle through changes
:changes	List all jumps

Quickfix list:

Key	Action
:cn	Next on QuickFix list
:cn	Previous on QuickFix list

Windows

Windows are viewports for buffers

Key	Action
<Ctrl-w> s	Split window
<Ctrl-w> v	Split window vertically
<Ctrl-w> q	Close window
<Ctrl-w> w	Move cursor to alternate windows
<Ctrl-w> o	Make buffer only one in window
<Ctrl-w> x	Swap windows
<Ctrl-w> r	Rotate windows
:windo {CMD}	Execute command for all windows
:sf {FILE}	split window and find file
:vert {CMD}	Make any split {cmd} be vertical

Tabs

Tabs are collections of windows.

Key	Action
gt	Go to next tab
gT	Go to previous tab
:tabc	Close Tab
:tabe	Open Tab
:tabo	Close all other tabs

Vim as an IDE

Key	Action
:20vs .	Use netw to view files in 20 char split
:find <filename>	Can find and open <filename>
:vert sf <filename>	split a search for <filename>, open in split
<CTRL-W> x	swap windows
:tabf <filename>	open tab with <filename> (not affect existing win)
:vert sf <filename>	split a search for <filename>, open in split
p	On <filename> in netrc, will preview
<Ctrl-w> z	Close preview window
<Ctrl-w> o	Make buffer only one in window
:args	See what vim was opened with
:args */.yaml	Make arglist all YAML files
:sall	Split all files in arglist
:vert sa	Vertically split all files
:windo difft	do a diff for every file in window
<CTRL-X>
<CTRL-L>
gT	go back to previous tab
gt	go to next tab
:vimgrep TODO %	find all todos in current file
:cn	next on quickfix list
@	repeat command
:args */.py	add all python files to arglist
:vim TODO ##	vimgrep through all on argslist
:cn	can see all files on arglist are search and move
:cdo s/TODO/DONE/g	replace all TODOs with DONE on every line
:cp	can see previous in QuickFix (all are changed)

See also: Emacs