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Vim

vim is a modal editor (improving on vi). It can run without graphics, is ubiquitous, powerful, and efficient but is an acquired skill.

  • MIT's “missing semester” has an excellent summary of vim functions video and notes.

Vim’s design is based on the idea that a lot of programmer time is spent reading, navigating, and making small edits, as opposed to writing long streams of text. For this reason, Vim has multiple operating modes.

  1. Normal: for moving around a file and making edits
  2. Insert: for inserting text
  3. Replace: for replacing text
  4. Visual (plain, line, or block): for selecting blocks of text
  5. Command-line: for running a command
  • vimtutor is a program included with vim that will guide you through usage – run it from the command line.
  • vim-wiki

Commands

  1. vim $filename → opens a file in vim. If that file doesn't exist or you opened it in the wrong filepath, you will see an empty blank vim that says [NEW] at the bottom
  2. i → puts you in insert mode so you can freely type and move your cursor around. Says – INSERT – in bottom left.
  3. esc → gets you out of insert mode
  4. :set nu shows you line numbers

move around

  1. 0 or Home puts your cursor to the beginning of the line (in command mode)
  2. $ or End puts your cursor to the end of the line (in command mode)
  3. Shift + i puts your cursor to the beginning of the line and opens insert mode
  4. Shift + a puts your cursor to the end of the line and opens insert mode
  5. o opens insert mode on a new line below your cursor
  6. up and down arrows move you up and down each line but to move between lines click g then up or down arrow
  7. u undo last change (in command mode)

Copy and paste

  • Click v to put you in visual mode
  • move your cursor to highlight the words you want to copy and press d
  • move your cursor to where you want to paste words and press p

close vim temporarily

  • Ctrl + z puts the vim window to “sleep” and brings you back to the terminal
  • fg brings you from the terminal back into the last script in vim you were working on

exit

  • :q → quits vim
  • :wq → saves what you wrote and quits vim
  • :q! → does not save what you wrote and quits vim