Vim Notes

Notes on the Vim (Vi Impoved) Text Editor



Use the vimtutor to learn Vim by just typing into the terminal:  vimtutor


-- Doing stuff in Normal Mode --

Commands have operators and motions. For example, when deleting "d" is the
operator (the delete operator) and the letter that follows will be the motion,
for example, 'w' is the motion for going to the beginning of the next word, so
dw deletes from the cursos up to the beginning of the next word (excluding that
begining).
So 'w' by itself is just a motion, so it just moves the cursor to the beginning
of the next word.
Also typing a number before any motion or operator does that command that many
times. So 5dw would delete up to the beginning of 5 words in front of the
cursor, where as 5w would move the cursor up to the start of the 5th word past
the cursor's current spot. Note that when there is an operation and a motion,
like when deleting, the count specifier (the number) can be typed before the
operation or between the operation and the motion. So 3dw is the same as d3w.

d is the delete operator.
c is the change operator, works on all the same motions as delete does. It also
    deletes but the difference is that it puts you in Insert Mode so you can
    make changes after you deleted the stuff.


Moving the cursor:
h - moves the cursor left
j - moves the cursor down
k - moves the cursor up
l - moves the cursor right


Getting Help:
:help - this will bring you to the Vim help page where it describes all the Vim
        commands. You can get help with a specific command by typing in the
        command after :help. When in the help file type :exit to get out of it
        and back to the file you were working with.


Saving and Quitting:
:w - Saves the file.
:w filename - Saves the file under a specified filename, will create a new
              filename is it hasn't yet been created.
:q - exits the Vim text editor if nothing has been edited since the last save.
:q! - quits and doesn't save anything that has been edited since last save.


Switching to Insert Mode:
i - switches to insert mode at the current cursor position
o - opens a line below the cursor, moves there, and switches to insert mode 
O - opens a line above the cursor, moves there, and switches to insert mode
a - moves the cursor one spot to the right and switches to insert mode
A - moves the cursor to the end of the line and switches to insert mode


Selecting and doing stuff with selections::
v - pressing v and then moving the cursor highlights the text. When something is
    highlighted you can then save the selected text to anothing file by doing
    :w filename. You can also use operators to do stuff to the text when it is
    selected, like deleting it with d.


Deleting:

dw - deletes from the cursor's position to the end of the word that the cursor
     is currently over.
db - deletes from the cursor's position to the beginning of the word (note
     though that the deletion excludes the character at cursor's current
     position).
d0 - deletes from the position directly before the cursor to the beginning of
     the current line.
d$ - deletes the rest of the line starting from where the cursor is.
D  - does the same thing as d$ (deletes to the end of the line).
de - deletes from the cursor to the end of the word
dd - deletes the entire current line (5dd would delete the current line and the
     next 4 lines after it).


Moving:

w - moves to the beginning of the next word
b - the opposite of 'w'. Moves to the beginning of the previous word (starting
    with the current word).
e - moves to the end of the next word (starting with the current word)
0 - moves to start of the current line
$ - moves to end of the current line


Undo/Redo:

u - to undo previous commands just type u.
U - undoes all the immediate changes to the last line that was changed. If you
    go to a different line and make a change then U will just undo that one.
CTRL-r - redo. opposite of using u.


Replacing:

r - press 'r' over a space and then type the character you want to be in that
    space.
R - allows you to replace more than one letter starting where the cursor is.
    You just keep typing and the cursor moves along replacing what is there
    with what you are typing. Then just press ESC to stop replacing.
p - places whatever the last thing saved to the Vim register or whatever to
    where the cursor is. That could be something that was copied with the 'y'
    command or the last thing that was deleted.
y - short for 'yank', it is the copy tool. Pressing y on a line will copy the
    entire contents of that line. Press p to paste it. You can use v to
    highlight text in conjunction with y to copy it, then p to paste it.
    You can also use y as an operator, so yw copies from the current cursor
    position to just before the beginning of the next word. Pressing 3y will
    copy the 3 lines ending in the line the cursor is currently on.


Changing:
cd - deletes from the cursor to the end of the current word and puts you into
     Insert Mode so that you can retype the rest of the word correctly.


Cursor Location:
CNTL-G - displays the filename, current line number, total number of lines in
         the file, percentage of the way through the file, and the column
         number.
G - moves cursor to end of the file
gg - moves cursor to start of the file
:lineNum - moves cursor to specified line number. i.e. :45 would move to line 45


Searching:
/text - press the slash key and then type some text and press enter to search a
        file for that text. Then press n to go to the next instance of that
        text that was found in the file, or press N to go to the previous
        instance.
:set ic - this sets a search to ignore case. So once you've set the ic option
          any search will not be case sensitive. To ignore case for just one
          search you can just add \c to the end of your search.
:set noic - disables the ignore case option so searches are once again case
            sensitive
:set hls is - this will highlight all the search terms in the text when a
              search is being made, that is the hls part. The is option shows
              partial matches for a search phrase. Disables these in the same
              way you disable the ic option, with :set nohls and :set nois.
?text - also a search but instead of searching forwards in the file it searches
        backwards through the file.
CNTL-o - note that o is the letter in "oh". This command takes you backwards in
         your search, eventually taking you back to where you were before you
         started the search. It is basically undoing each step of the search.
         You can use it to find the place where you were in the file before
         seraching.
CNTL-i - opposite of CNTL-o, moves you forward in the search. Only works if you
         have been using CNTL-o already to move backwards.
% - does parenthesis matching, so if you are on a ( or { or [ or their matching
    counterparts pressing % will move the cursor to the matching bracket or
    parenthesis.


Substituting:
:s/find/replace - the word in the 'find' spot is replaced with word in the
                  'replace' spot on the current line. Add on /g to the end
                  of this command to find and replace all instances of the
                  word on that line. /g stands for global.
:#,#s/find/replace/g - to find and replace the word at every spot between the
                       line numbers specified by the two # in the command
:%s/find/replace/g - to find and replace the word throughout the entire file
:%s/find/replace/gc - to find every occurance of the word in the file and ask
                      if it should be replaced 


Using Shell Commands:
:!Command - typing in a command from the command line after :! will execute
            that command. So :!ls will run the ls command in whatever directory
            the file that you are working on is in. Press Enter to run the
            command.


Retrieving and Merging Files:
:r filename - this will paste the contents of the specified file at the
              position of the cursor.
:r !Command - the output from the specified command will be pasted at the
              current position of the cursor.


Command Completion:
When typing a : command, press CNTL-d to see possible completions of that
command, then use the TAB key to scroll through them. For example, type :g
and then hit CNTL-g and it will show you all the commands that start with g.



There are a lot of options in Vim that aren't in Vi but that are disabled by
default. To start using more features you have to create a vimrc file.
Instructions can be found at the end of the vimtutor tutorial.