vim.md

So you wanna vim!

one of us! one of us!

Prerequisites

• Seven habits of effective text editing, by Bram Moolenaar, author of vim

Movement

• hjkl actually isn't any better than arrow keys. If you find yourself holding down l, stop and think about what you're doing. Use f or t, /<fragment>, or text objects to jump around. (w, ), }, etc. :help objects for more.)

• I prefer :set relativenumber number for line numbering. That way I can always see what line I'm on, and can see how far away lines are so I can 11j for example, and so I can tell at a glance that I want to 5dd without having to stop to count.

• You can move lines with :m. Instead of dd7kp, you can :m-7. If you want Atom style moving lines up and down, remap something like Alt-k or the up arrow to :m-1, and its analog to :m+1.

"basics"

Concepts that I consider to make vim great

1. registers

   • https://sanctum.geek.nz/arabesque/advanced-vim-registers/
   • :reg to view registers
   • Note that "+ is your system clipboard. gg"+yG will yank your entire file to the clipboard.
   • followed by a register will paste the contents of that register in insert mode.

2. macros

   • https://sanctum.geek.nz/arabesque/advanced-vim-macros/
   • contents of a register can be run as a macro. e.g. "f is gg=G. @f will format your entire file.

3. marks

   • http://kylecoberly.com/blog/using-marks-in-vim
   • :marks: to view your marks

4. repeat

   • http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Repeat_last_change

useful commands

Stuff I use a lot

4. :help - Just read it.

5. All the basic movement commands like f and F, t and T, and : and ; to repeat forward and backward those "find"s and "to"s

6. ^[ sends escape. very nice if you've mapped caps lock to CTRL

7. * Find word under cursor

8. gx Open URL under cursor. (gf: open file path under cursor.)

9. % Find matching bracket

10. >> indent (<< un-indent)

11. ^z suspend. drop into the shell. (if you're in the terminal.) Do your stuff, then fg to bring vim back to the "foreground".

12. H, M, L jump to top, middle, bottom of screen. ("High", "Medium", "Low")

13. zz move current line to middle of screen. (see also zt and zb)

Weird stuff

1. g?<dir> - rot13. g?? a whole line

Plugins

For the longest time, I didn't use any plugins. Now I do. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Check out https://vimawesome.com/

A couple of favs:

• NERDTree
• fugitive and gitgutter
• vim-surround
• emmet-vim
• vim-airline

suggestions

1. keep your vimrc in a git repo. so you can pull it down where ever you are. snoop people's vimrcs on github. Here's mine: https://github.com/chrisman/dotfiles/blob/master/vimrc

other resources

• Vimcasts! These are great. http://vimcasts.org/

• Giffy gifs! https://vimgifs.com/

• wikia tips: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Best_Vim_Tips

• Great video about autocompletion, registers, generally typing less: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TX3kV3TICU

appendix

Q. What kind of vim to use?

A. Use vim or neovim. (I use neovim.) Avoid using a GUI like gvim or macvim. One of the glorious things about vim in the terminal is having quick access to the command line and to UNIX utils. And being able to quickly suspend (c-z) and drop into a shell or into a REPL.

Q. How many different places can I use "vim"?

A. A lot. Most text editors support vim keys, or have a "vim mode" to various degrees. Including online editors like codepen. I make prodigious use of the vimium plugin in both Chrome and Firefox for a superior browser experience.