My collection of vim tips to make the best editor even better. This is by no means complete or a tutorial on how to use vim, but a set of commands I don't want to forget and need to write them down before they burn into memory.
See the resources section below for a more complete introduction and a set of in-depth tutorials.
:nn " Jump to line nn
nn| " Jump to column nn
ma " mark spot label it a
'a " jump to spot
'' " jump to last spot you were
:marks " show all marks
To create marks across files, use capital letters. I'll use this when working on an HTML View, CSS and Javascript. Mark the three spots H, C, J and easy to jump back and forth.
Vim has a clipboard history stored in registers, you can also use these registers to cut and paste items to. Your past history of copies is also stored in these registers, use list regiter to find something you thought might be gone since not in clipboard
"ad " cut something to register a
"ap " paste something from register a
:reg " list registers
S " delete line and insert mode at start
:g/regexp/d " delete all lines that match regexp
:v/regexp/d " delete all lines that do NOT regexp
:v/w{3,}/d " delete all lines with less than 3-chars
:15,20d " delete lines 10-20
:ls " list open buffers
:b [num|name] " switch to buffer
:b# " switch to last buffer
:bdel # " delete buffer
qa " start recording macro in buffer a
[do stuff]
q " end recording
@a
50@a (50 times)
Map ctrl-j d to run system command /tmp/x.py
:imap <C-j>d <C-r>=system('/tmp/x.py')<CR>
:map <F5> :setlocal spell! spelllang=en_us<CR>
I often find myself trying to hit escape and accidentally hit F1, which opens help. Since, I’ve never on purpose hit F1 for help, I map my F1 key to ESC.
map <F1> <Esc>
imap <F1> <Esc>
Here are a set of short cuts I have in my vimrc file that simplify some common operations. If I notice myself doing the same thing over and over, I try to add a shortcut when possible.
" Add spaces inside parentheses, WordPress coding style
map <Leader>o ci(hp
" Surround word with quote
map <Leader>' ysiw'
map <Leader>" ysiw"
" Add Trailing Semi-colon
map <Leader>; g_a;<Esc>
" Use :w!! to save with sudo
ca w!! w !sudo tee >/dev/null "%"
One of the best things about vim is all of the available plug-ins. The plugin manager vim-plug is a nice way to install, update, and manage plugins. Simply specify the plugins in your .vimrc and then call :PlugInstall Here is my set of plug-ins I use:
" use vim-plug to manage plugins
call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
Plug 'fatih/vim-go'
Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'dir': '~/.fzf' }
Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'
Plug 'scrooloose/nerdcommenter'
Plug 'SirVer/ultisnips'
Plug 'tpope/vim-surround'
call plug#end()
Tabular.vim is a very useful plugin to lineup characters amongst several lines, for example lining up the equal sign in a set of variable assignments. See vimcasts on tabular
fzf and ripgrep are a fuzzy search and fast search tool. They are quick and easy way to open and search files. See my article Unix is my IDE on how I setup and use them in vim and the command-line.
- My .vimrc and .vim dir in my dotfiles repo
- Derek Wyatt’s Vim Tutorials
- Vimcasts: Vim Video Tutorials
- 25 Tutorial, Screencasts and Resources