"Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. It is included as "vi" with most UNIX systems and with Apple OS X." - vim.org
Vim is a lightweight text editor that reduces repetative and reduntant actions to a minimum, allowing for more focus on writing text or code and spending less time on selecting text or cursor positioning. Vim is also present out of the box on most machines.
Being able to open and edit a text file with Vim is considered a base skill.
You are very likely to run into a program such as
manorlessthat supports a lot of 'vi-like' command, for example, acrossvim,manandlessyou can search text by typing/. This alone is plenty of reason to pick up and actively improve your Vim-skills.
On MacOS: MacOS comes with Vim already installed.
On Debian based Linux: Most distros come with Vim already installed (sometimes as vi). Otherwise install it with apt:
sudo apt install vim
Vim can be configured from it's dotfile. You can easily find prebuild Vim configurations through Google.
Once you launched Vim, you will notice that you cannot start typing in text like you usualy would in another text editor. This is because Vim starts in so called 'normal mode'. While in normal, all the buttons on the
keyboard are bound to 'commands': for example, w can be used to skip the cursor one word ahead. By pressing i Vim will go into 'insert mode'. While in insert mode, text can be entered like in any other text editor. By pressing ESC, Vim will return to 'normal mode'.
While in Vim, keep an eye on the bottom left of the screen and see what happens once you enter 'insert mode'.
By typing : in normal mode, you can enter a command into Vim. By typing : and w and then RET you can save a file ('w' for write). Entering :q quits Vim. Entering :wq saves and quits.
This is a very incomplete list of just a few usefull Vim commands:
| key | effect |
|---|---|
| h/j/k/l | move cursor left/down/up/right |
| w | move cursor one word ahead |
| b | move cursor one word back |
| e | move cursor to end of word |
| i | insert mode, before cursor |
| a | insert mode, behind cursor |
| I | insert mode, start of line |
| A | insert mode, end of line |
| 0 | insert mode, on line below |
| ) | insert mode, on line above |
| r | replace under cursor |
| cw | change word |
| cb | change word backwards |
| cc | change whole line |
| C | change everything after after the cursor |
| ciw" esc p | wrap word in parenthesis |
| dw | delete word |
| dd | delete line |
| yy | copy line |
| yw | copy word |
| ze | minimize function |
| v | visual mode, to select |
| p | paste |
| gg | top of buffer |
| [b or ]b | switch between buffers |
| G | bottom of buffer |
| / | search (RET to confirm entry) |
| alt+shift+5 | search and replace word |
| n | next search result |
| N | previous search result |
| : | command mode |
| 1 | enter a number to repeat a command n times |
| ESC | return to normal mode |
Once you've gotten used to these, get yourself a bigger cheat sheet through Google. You'll probably pick up a few new usefull commands right away.
Take a look at w and b, now take a look at c w and c b. Since you know what e does; what does c e do?
A lot of Vim commands work exactly like in the example. Not everything will be fully 'obvious', but by learning just a few commands and combining them, learning the basics Vim is a lot less hard than it seems. By memorizing a few basic commands, you can easily compose more advanced commands.
You can start vimtutor with the following terminal command to practise Vim:
vimtutor
In Spacemacs you can use SPC h T to start Evil-tutor, which is basically vimtutor.
Vim Adventures is a more playfull way to practise Vim.
Once you get the hang of basic Vim text editing, try to make Vim really work for you. Once you are done writing something, reflect on what you did, find out what you did not like and proceed to look up how Vim could have fixed your (text based!) problems.
By trying to focus on learning Vim commands that are usefull to you, it should be relatively easy to learn one extra command a day/week, depending on coding frequency.
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