Missing Semester 03 - Editors (Vim)

Vim's interface is a programming language 🤯.

Written by Eva Dee on (about a 3 minute read).

Vim Modes

  • Normal: for moving around a file and making edits (Esc)
  • Insert: for inserting text (i)
  • Replace: for replacing text (R)
  • Visual (plain v, line V, or block ctrl+v): for selecting blocks of text
  • Command-line: for running a command (:)

Some Vim Vocabulary

  • a buffer: a set of open files (A given buffer may be open in multiple windows, even within the same tab)
  • a session: A Vim session has a number of tabs, each of which has a number of windows (split panes)
  • a tab: each tab has a number of windows
  • a window: a view (each window shows a single buffer)

Command Mode

  • :q close the current window
  • :qa close all windows (quit Vim)
  • :q! close and discard any changes you've made (force-quit)
  • :w save
  • :wq save and quit
  • :help [topic] open help (:help :w opens help for the :w command)
  • :e [name of file] open file for editing
  • :ls show open buffers

Movement (normal mode)

  • Basic movement: hjkl (left, down, up, right)
  • Words: w (next word), b (beginning of word), e (end of word)
  • Lines: 0 (beginning of line), ^ (first non-blank character), $ (end of line)
  • Screen: H (top of screen), M (middle of screen), L (bottom of screen)
  • Scroll: Ctrl+u (up), Ctrl+d (down)
  • File: gg (beginning of file), G (end of file)
  • Find: f[character], t[character], F[character], T[character] (Find and To)
    • find/to forward/backward [character] on the current line
    • , / ; for navigating matches
  • % (find the corresponding item - brackets, quotation marks etc)
  • search: /[regex], n / N for navigating matches

Editing (insert mode)

  • o / O insert line below / above
  • d[motion] delete [motion]
    • e.g. dw is delete word, d$ is delete to end of line, d0 is delete to beginning of line
    • dd deletes the whole line
  • `c[motion] change [motion] (similar to delete, but puts you in insert mode)
    • e.g. cw is change word
  • x delete character (equal do dl)
  • r[character] replaces the current character with the one you typed
  • u to undo, ctrl+r to redo
  • y to copy / “yank”
  • p to paste
  • ~ flips the case of a character (or selection)

Selection (visual mode)

  • do motion action and select everything in between
  • in Visual Line mode (V) you'll be selecting by lines at the time
  • in Visual Block mode (ctrl+v) you'll be selecting by rectangular blocks

Counts

To perform a given action a number of times.

  • 3w move 3 words forward
  • 5j move 5 lines down
  • 7dw delete 7 words

Modifiers

Particularly useful for changing stuff inside/around brackets, quotes.

  • i, “inside”, and a, “around”.
  • ci( change the contents inside the current pair of parentheses
  • ci[ change the contents inside the current pair of square brackets
  • da' delete a single-quoted string, including the surrounding single quotes