Vim Habits. Detect inefficiency Find a quicker way Make it a habit

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Shonda Ball
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Vim Habits A few years ago I watched a very interesting video about vim which I like to share because I think it s important for all developers, not only for vim users but also for those who spend

1 Vim Habits A few years ago I watched a very interesting video about vim which I like to share because I think it s important for all developers, not only for vim users but also for those who spend many hours per day with a text editor. The video is a talk by Bran Moolenaar, the author of vim (:help credits), and it is based in three basic steps to become more and more efficient with the text editor: Detect inefficiency Find a quicker way Make it a habit Here is a list of good habits you should adopt with vim.

2 Vim modes Normal (Esc) vim starts in normal mode Everything the user types in normal mode is interpreted as commands Insert (i,i,a,a,o,o) Visual plain visual (v) block visual (C v) linewise visual (S v) Command (:) Basic :w[rite] Save :q[uit] Exit :x Save and exit (same as :wq) :q! Exit without save :qa[ll] Exit from all buffers fg return vim to foreground

3 Habits 1: Move quicky Most time is spent on reading, so you need to know how to move quickly. You should NEVER use the arrow keys. Moving your Vim cursor around using the arrow keys is a bad habit, and like many bad habits it s a difficult to break! h, j, k, l move left, down, up and right w, W jump by start of words or WORDS e, E jump to end of words or WORDS b, B jump backward by words or WORDS 0 jump to start of line ^ jump to first non blank character of line $ jump to end of line {number}g jump to line {number} (5G goes to line 5) G jump to end of file gg jump to begin of file f{char} search forward to first ocurrence of {char} on current line F{char} search backward to first ocurrence of {char} on current line t{char} T{char} idem f/f but stops one char before the searched char ; and, repeat the last f/f search forward and backward respectly C d move half page down C u move half page up C b page up C f page down

4 word vs WORD Is important to know the difference between words and WORDS in vim: :help word A word consists of a sequence of letters, digits and underscores, or a sequence of other non blank characters, separated with white space (spaces, tabs, ). name name1 name_1 NAME_1 13 $ % #&/ {} 12eore A WORD consists of a sequence of non blank characters, separated with white space. An empty line is also considered to be a WORD. name name1 name_1 NAME_1 13 $ % #&/ {} 12eore $a=$name 1 foo() *item bar('hello_world') word is a subgroup of WORD.

5 Habits 2: Editing quicky Rest of the time is spent on writing, so again, you need to know how to do it quickly. Insert/Append text Edit i start insert mode at cursor I start insert mode at the beginning of line a append after cursor A append at the end of line o open (append) blank line below O open (append) blank line a * bove Esc exit insert mode (return to normal mode) r replace character under cursor J join line below to the current one cc change an entire line cw, cw change actual word or WORD C change from current pos to end of line D delete from current pos to end of line xp transpose to characters u undo. repeat last command

6 Cut and paste yy yank (copy) a line yw, yw yank word, WORD y$ yank to end of line p, P put (paste) after or before cursor dd delete current line dw, dw delete current word or WORD x delete current character Marking text (visual mode) v start visual mode V start Linewise visual mode C v start visual block mode o move to other end of marked area vi{char} select text inside characters va{char} select text include characters Esc exit visual mode (return to normal mode) Omni Completion C x C o open popup with ocurrences C n go to next item in list C p go to previous item in list C x C f filename completion

7 Buffers :ls List buffers :e[dit], :new, :vnew Create buffer :w file Save buffer :w >>file Save buffer (append) :b[uffer]{n} Go to buffer n :bd[elete]{n} Delete buffer n :help buffers Tabs vim p file1 file2 file3 :tabnew New empty tab :tabe[dit] file Open file in new tab :tabc[lose] Close current tab :tabo[nly] Close all other tabs :tabn[ext], gt Go to next tab :tabn{n}, {n}gt Go to n tab :tabp[revious], gt Go to previous tab :tabfirst Go to first tab :tablast Go to last tab Search (normal mode) /text Search forward?text Search backward *(over a word) Show all ocurrences of that word n next ocurrence N previous ocurrence % Match next/previous { } [ ] ( )

8 Regex (command mode) :range s[ubstitute]/pattern/string/cgii Range n specific line. current line $ the last line in file % the whole file, same as 1,$ n,m range from n to m Modifiers c Confirm each substitution g Replace all occurrences in the line (without g only first) i Ignore case for the pattern I Don't ignore case for the pattern Metacharacters \s whitespace character \S no whitespace character \d digit \D no digit \w word character \W no word character

9 Quantifiers * matches 0 or more preceding chars \+ matches 1 or more \= matches 0 o 1 \{n,m} matches from n to m \{n} matches exactly n times \{,m} matches almost m (from 0 to m) \{n,} matches at least n Characters range [0 9] matches chars from 0 to 9, same as \d [0 9a za Z] [abc] matches only a, b or c chars [^abc] matches all except a, b, c chars Grouping and backreferences $pattern$ group can be used as \n s:$\w\+$ $\w\+$:\2 \1: swap first two words of line

10 Execute external commands (Bang!) :!cmd run cmd command and display output on screen :!php l % check php syntax of current buffer :n,m!sort sort lines from n to m Append output of external command :r file puts file content on current buffer :r[ead]! cmd run cmd command and put output on current buffer :r! date put the date on current buffer :r! ls 1 put filenames on current buffer Write and append to file :w file write to file (file must not exists) :w! file override file :w >>file append to file :[range]w file write range to file :[range]w >>file append range to file Macros qa<commands>q save macro under letter a {n}@a execute macro a n times Registers ayy copy line in register a Ayy append line to register a ap paste register a :reg show all registers

11 Important settings :set show all settings :set nu, nonu show, hide line numbers :set list show unprintable chars :set nowrap no wrap lines :set autoindent copy indent for new line :set smartindent smart autoindent for new line :set tabstop=4 the number of columns for a tab (still tabs! \t) :set shiftwidth=4 indents will have a width of 4 :set expandtab use spaces, no tabs :set ignorecase ignore case in search filetype plugin on set omnifunc=syntaxcomplete#complete Settings by file vim: set expandtab ts=4 sw=4 ai : last line of file Nice maps Jump to another window nmap <C j> <C w>j nmap <C k> <C w>k nmap <C h> <C w>h nmap <C l> <C w>l Resize window nmap <S j> <C w>+ nmap <S k> <C w> nmap <S h> <C w>< nmap <S l> <C w>>

12 Habits 3: Using vim mode in the shell When you close vim and return to the console you can still write and edit commands in the vim way. By default many bash shells are configured in emacs mode, but you can change to vi mode just typing $ set o vi Now you can, for example, navigate the history by pressing jand kkeys (same as down, up in vim). You can also open the mysql console and write and edit sql in vim way. Here it s a whole reference for the vi mode. If you want to enable this mode by default put these lines in your ~/.inputrc set editing mode vi set keymap vi Habits 4: Using vim mode in web browser Just try Vimium! :)

13 Reference Just type vimtutorin your console 7 Habits for Effective Text Editing Habit breaking, habit making breaking habit making/ Vim Live it. Vim graphical cheat sheet vim cheat sheet.gif Readline VI editing mode cheat sheet vi editing mode cheat sheet.pdf Some configs

Bok, Jong Soon

Using VI Editor Bok, Jong Soon javaexpert@nate.com www.javaexpert.co.kr Linux Text Editors - Gedit Lab 1 : Installation Gedit Plugins Installation Gedit Plugins (1/3) 1. $ sudo apt-get install y gedit-plugins