VIM Usage

These notes are how to use VIM in general use. They are based on A Byte of VIM and Practical VIM.

Modes

Multiple modes - the aim to make mouse redundant so we switch navigation from the mouse to a VIM mode and use the keyboard
- insert mode for text entry
- normal mode for running commands (rewriting, editing)
- visual mode to visually select text

Commands

Press : to enter commands in VIM. You can use the up arrows to scroll through previous commands. You can also type a portion of the command and then press up to scroll through previous commands with that prefix.

:e <name> - edit a file & create it if it doesn't exist
:w - write (save) a file
:q - quit editor
/query - search for the next occurence of query
:help - open the vim help

Beginning to edit

Beginning editing starts from the normal mode. Some of these commands return you to normal mode after finishing editing.

. - repeat the last normal mode change command
I - go to the start of the line and enter insert mode
i - switch to insert mode before the current postion
A - go to the end of the line and enter insert mode
a - switch to insert mode after the current position
O - open a new line above the current line and enter insert mode
o - open a new line below the current line and enter insert mode.
S - substitute the entire line for a new one
s - substitute the current character for a new one and stay in insert mode.
r - replace the current character and go back to normal mode
R - replace continuous characters and go back to normal mode
C - change the rest of the line

Single Character Edits

~ - change the case of the character under the cursor
x - delete the character under the cursor
r - replace the character under the cursor

h - move left
j - move down
k - move up
l - move right
Adding a count before these will repeat the operation that amount of times.

Line

^ - move to the start of the line
$ - move to the end of the line

File

Ctrl-b - move one screen up
Ctrl-f - move one screen down
G - move to the end of the file
1G - move to the top of the file
50G - move to line 50

Window

H - move to top of the visible window (High)
M - move to middle of the visible window (Middle)
L - move to bottom of the visible window (Low)

Word

w - move to the start of the next word
e - move to the end of the next word
b - move back to start of the previous word

Sentence

( - move to the previous sentence
) - move to the next sentence
{ - move to the previous paragraph
} - move to the next paragraph

Mark

This is a marker in a file identified by a single character (uppercase or lowercase) to which we can jump to
ma - create a mark named a
'a - jump to mark named a

Location

Ctrl-o - jump to the previous location
Ctrl-i - jump to the next location

Text selection

Press v to enter visual mode
Now combine a with a text object selector to select the text
- aw - select a word
- ap - select a paragraph
- ab - select a block

Windows/Buffers

:pc - close any preview window open

Cursor

Vim can navigate based on what's under the cursor
gF - go to the file under the cursor
g] - go to the tag under the cursor

Special/Unicode Characters

To insert unicode characters type Ctrl-vu followed by the 4 digit hex code for that character.

Misc

From force of habit I sometimes press Ctrl-s in VIM. This hangs my version of VIM. To recover from this press Ctrl-q.

Usage