How to Use Vim

This blog both spreads the holiness of Vim and keeps a reminder of useful commands for myself.

This is the 1st of totally 2 blogs about Vim. And this is the next blog.

My Previous Experience

In my junior year, I took the course Computer Architecture and Systems Programming. I started to use Vim because I hated the only other option for an non-GUI editor: Nano. I didn't seriously wrote my .bashrc, .vimrc, and tmux.conf till the following summer. However, my Vim skills plateaued afterwards, since there weren't many scenarios to force me to use Vim, and I was sufficiently happy with VSCode/Sublime Text/IntelliJ.

When I worked at GS, I used less more than Vim. There were few times requiring my Vim skills to edit files on a server, but not enough to be more familiar with it. Though I was busy with work, I always wanted to refresh my skills on Vim when I get time.

Now is the time!

Why Care About Editor

You might spend $\frac{2}{3}$ of your waking hours coding, and you might spend $\frac{2}{3}$ of your coding time in your editor. Thus, you might want to twitch your editor to make half of your day happy and efficient. Vim is the perfect suit: completely customizable, blazingly fast, and super geeky.

Why Vim

Vim's philosophy conincides with geeks': keyboard is faster and more powerful than mouse. I envy the those on YouTube who could just type Vim commands and my eyes couldn't follow. To be a geek, I need to first become a Vimer.

Philosophy of this Blog

I try to cut baloney, if any, and directly explain commands.

I try to go from simple to complex. First we learn basic commands in vanilla Vim, and then we think about customizing in .vimrc, at last we can install more plugins and combine Vim with Tmux.

This blog only focuses on the first: basic commands.

Notes before Proceeding

• You need to practice multiple times till the commands become your physical memory. Practice makes perfect!
• <C-w> means the command being Control key followed by w
• <cr> is carriage return (<Enter> or <Return>)
• In x{y}, {y} is a placeholder
• In x[y], either x or xy could do the same job

Vim or NeoVim?

To be frank, both behave essentially the same, but NeoVim's codebase is slightly better than Vim's (read this blog (opens new window)). Now that Vim 8 has caught up and improved, there isn't much difference a user would discern between the two.

But I would still vote for NeoVim.

Fun Facts

Vim stems from Vi and stands for Vi IMproved. The prefix "Neo" in "NeoVim" signifies that NeoVim stems from Vim. But why isn't NeoVim called "Vimim"? However, if were so, how do you pronounce this word? 😬

Note that for NeoVim, you don't type neovim to start it, but nvim. Could do the following to start NeoVim with vim:

if type nvim > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  alias vim='nvim'
fi

Install and Upgrade NeoVim

For my Mac, I use brew install nvim to install NeoVim and brew upgrade nvim to upgrade it.

For Unix/Linux systems, could use the corresponding package manager to install and upgrade.

For Windows, could install gVim (GUI Vim), or Cygwin/Cmder for a more powerful terminal, or a Linux distro in MS store and use the terminal.

Personally, I don't like virtual machines nor dual boot.

Tutorials

Before proceeding, there are some tutorials I recommend:

1. a fun and interactive tutorial written by Vim developers:
   • If you use Vim, in shell do vimtutor
   • If you use NeoVim, enter it and do :Tutor Personally I prefer the 2nd as it's more updated.
2. a group of tutorials in Chinese (opens new window)
3. a video tutorial in Chinese (opens new window) (where I found very useful and learned most stuff written below)

Basic Commands

If you don't know a command in Vim, you could always do :h[elp] {Command}.

Start Vim, Insert, Save, and Quit

When you enter Vim with command vim, the default mode is normal. To start typing, you need to enter the insert mode, and here is how:

By pressing a, or i, or o, you can insert at different places:

Command	Usage
a	append after the cursor
i	insert before the cursor
o	open a new line below the current line

And here are A, I, O:

Command	Usage
A	append at end of line
I	insert at start of line
O	open a new line above the current line

Note that o opens a new line below the current line, while O above.

To go back to normal mode, you just press esc.

In normal mode, press:

• to save, :w and Enter
• to quit, :q and Enter
• to quit w/o saving, press :q! and Enter, or just <S-ZQ>
• to save and quit, press :wq or :x and Enter, or just <S-ZZ>

Understand the Modes

Most users are surprised that there are so many modes in Vim: normal, insert, replace, visual, command.

Initially Vim was designed to use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a GUI without a mouse/cursor. The normal mode to navigate around the file. When we users open a file, rather than just editing, more often we read, select, and jump to where we want to edit. Normal mode makes navigation on keyboard much faster, which is why it is still used today after almost 3 decades since its initial release in 1991.

Here are what the four modes are for and how to enter them:

Mode	Usage	How to enter
normal	navigate and enter commands	- default mode when entering vim. - in other modes, press esc or <C-[> to come back to this mode
insert	edit the document, like any other editor	see last section
replace	replace the current char and go to the next	R
visual	select chars	- v, select from current char - <C-v>, select a block using hjkl - <S-v>, select the whole line, could then hjkl to select more lines
command	execute commands	:

Common Commands under insert Mode

also works in shell:

• <C-h>, delete prev char
• <C-w>, delete last word
• <C-u>, delete from current position to start of line

Common Commands under command Mode (prefixed with :)

• set nu[mber]: set line number
• syntax on: turn on syntax highlighting
• vs: vertical split
• sp: horizontal split
• % s/foo/bar/g: substitute foo with bar globally (see more in How to substitute)
• <C-d>: see possible completions
• <C-p>: show the last command

How to Move Your Cursor around in Normal Mode

Again, the default mode of Vim is normal, under which there are so many cool commands to navigate the file!

---

Move $\leftarrow$, $\downarrow$, $\uparrow$, $\rightarrow$

Vim uses hjkl becauses they are the keys your right hand could reach the fastest. They become pretty intuitive once I get used to them.

Move by one char:

• h: $\leftarrow$
• j: $\downarrow$
• k: $\uparrow$
• l: $\rightarrow$

Move down 20 lines: 20j.

move between words

w or W (word) moves to the start of next word

e or E (end) moves to the end of next word

b or B (back) moves to the start of last word

The difference between the three lowercase and respective capitalized commands above is how you define a word:

• the lowercase command sees a word delimited by non-alphanumeric char
• the capitalized command sees a word delimited by space

So the capitalized commands move faster than the lowercase ones.

Most times, I just use w and b.

move to a char on the current line

• f{char} (find): move to the next <char>
• t{char} (till): move to the char before <char>

Despite search successful or not, could press ; to go to the next and , to go to the last.

To search for a prev char, could F<char>, which is equivalent to f<char> then ,.

move to the start/end of current line

• 0: first char
• ^: first non-whitespace char

To move to the end of current line, could:

• $: last char
• g_: last non-whitespace char

Personally, I use 0 and $ most often. To avoid remembering ^ and g_, I would press 0 and then w to move to the first non-whitespace char, and press $ and then b to move to the last non-whitespace char.

move between sentences/paragraphs (not used often)

• ( or ): between sentences
• { or }: between paragraphs

move to start/end of document and last edit

• gg: start of document
• G: end of document

move back/forward

• <C-o>: jump back
• <C-i>: jump forward

move to a line given the line number

Given the line number, :{n} or {n}G moves to line n.

move to the head/middle/bottom of a page

On a page,

• H (Head): head
• M (Middle): middle
• L ( Low): bottom

move pages up/down

Move by half page:

• <C-u> (Up): $\uparrow$
• <C-d> (Down): $\downarrow$

Move by full page:

• <C-b> (Backward): $\uparrow$
• <C-f> (Forward): $\downarrow$

Move by one line without moving the cursor:

• <C-e>: $\downarrow$
• <C-y>: $\uparrow$

jump to any character instantly on screen

See vim-easymotion (opens new window) in How to Customize Vim.

---

How to Copy and Paste

• yank: copy
• put: paste after
• Put: paste before

Examples:

• yw: copy from current cursor to word end
• yiw copy the inner word
• yaw: delete a word, which includes whitespace char after the word
• yy: copy a line
• {n}yy or y{n}y: copy n lines
• {n}p: paste after the cursor n times
• {n}P: paste before the cursor n times

In visual mode, y stores the deleted the content in clipboard(or unnamed register). See more in text object and register.

How to Delete

d is the delete operator.

x deletes char under the cursor; {n}x deletes n chars under and after the cursor. X deletes a char before the cursor; {n}X deletes n chars before the cursor.

Examples:

• dw: delete from current cursor to word end
• diw: delete the inner word
• daw: delete a word, which includes whitespace char after the word
• dd: delete a line
• {n}dd or d{n}d: delete n lines

In visual mode, and both x and d store the deleted the content in clipboard(or unnamed register). See more in text object and register.

How to replace, change(, and substitute)

Compared to delete, in normal mode, more often we replace, change, and substitute.

• r replaces a char; R enters replace mode
• s cuts char under the cursor and enters insert mode; {n}s cuts n char(s) and enters insert mode; S cuts line and enters insert mode
• c equals to delete and insert; cw deletes a word and enters insert mode (similar for ciw and caw)

How to search

set hls to highlight search; set incsearch to increment search.

/ searches forward; ? searches backward.

n jumps to next match; N jumps to last match.

If on a word, could jump to the same next word by * and to the same last word by #.

How to substitute

:{range} s/{pattern}/{string}/{flags}

{range} specifies the range of substitution. E.g., 10,20 means line 10 to 20. % means all content in the file

s stands for substitute.

{pattern} is the text to substitute and could be regex.

{string} is the target text.

common {flags} include:

• globally substitute
• confirm whether or not substitute
• number reports the number of matches but not substitute

examples:

• 1,6 s/self/this/g: globally substitute all self with this from line 1 to 6
• % s/self//n: reports number of matches on total number of lines
• :% s/\<abc\>/def/g: only substitutes the word abc but not words that contain it

To substitute matches in multiple files, see far.vim (opens new window) in How to Customize Vim.

Undo and Redo

In normal mode,

• u: undo
• <C-r>: redo

Buffer, Window, Tab

These three words may have different meanings in Vim than in other context.

Buffer

A buffer in Vim is an open instance of a file, but may not necessarily be visible on the current screen.

The following two commands can use Tab for auto-completion:

• :e {buffer_name}: open a new file and store into a buffer
• :b {buffer_name}: open a buffer with name {buffer_name}

Other common commands:

• :ls: list all buffers
• :b {n}: jump to the nth buffer
• :bd or bdelete: close a buffer
• :bp or :bpre or :bprev or :bprevious: jump to the previous buffer
• :bn or bnext: jump to the next buffer
• :bf or :bfirst: jump to the first buffer
• :bl or :blast: jump to the last buffer

Window

A window in Vim is a viewport onto a single buffer. Within a single Vim session, a buffer can be viewed in multiple windows, and a window could view multiple buffers.

W in the following commands stands for "window".

• <C-W>s or :sp[lit]: horizontally split
• <C-W>v or :vs[plit]: vertically split

:sp or :vs opens the same file in a new window; :sp {another_file_name} opens another file in a horizontally split new window.

:q quits a window; :q! or <S-ZQ> quits a window without saving.

To switch between windows:

• <C-w>w: next
• <C-w>h: $\leftarrow$
• <C-w>j: $\downarrow$
• <C-w>k: $\uparrow$
• <C-w>l: $\rightarrow$

To move windows:

• <C-w>H: $\leftarrow$
• <C-w>J: $\downarrow$
• <C-w>K: $\uparrow$
• <C-w>L: $\rightarrow$

To resize windows:

• <C-w>= makes all windows equal lengths and heights
• <C-w>_ maximizes current window's height
• <C-w>| maximizes current window's width
• {n}<C-w>_ sets current window's height to n lines
• {n}<C-w>| sets current window's width to n columns

Tab

A tab in Vim is a collection of one or more windows. Tab is not used very much if screen is big enough for multiple windows. We could just understand the basic commands:

• tabe[dit] {file_name} or tabn[ew] {file_name}: open a new file
• <C-w>T: move the current window to a new tab
• :tabc[lose]: close the current tab and all the windows in it
• :tabo[nly]: keep only the current tab and close all other tabs

To switch between tabs:

• :tabn[ext] {n} or {n}gt: tab n
• :tabn[ext] or gt: next tab
• :tabp[revious] or gT: previous tab

Text Object

Similar as class as object in OOP, Vim has object, but on text. Editing on text objects is definitely more efficient than on single chars.

In normal mode, to operate on a text object: {number}{operator}{text object}.

{number} is the number of times the {operator} needs to be executed.

{operator} is the operator to execute, such as view, delete, change, yank(copy), paste.

{text object} could be: word, sentence, paragraph, " for text in quotes, ( for text in parentheses etc.

Register (will use "reg" instead)

When we x, delete or yank(copy), the content is stored into an unnamed reg.

Store into A Named Reg

Could use "{reg} to specify the reg name. If not specified, then content is stored into an unnamed reg.

Examples:

• :reg a: show text stored in reg a
• "0yy: yank the current line to reg 0
• "ayiw: yank an inner word to reg a
• "bdd: delete current line and stores into reg b
• "0p: paste text stored in reg 0

Other Common Regs

Common regs by default:

• 0: store yanked text
• +: store to system clipboard to yank/paste text outside Vim
• %: current file name
• . text inserted last time

Macro

Macro in Vim is a set of commands to run on texts. It comes handy when lots of text are run with same set of commands. These are the steps:

1. q{reg}: record commands to a reg. For example, qa stores commands to reg a.
2. Edit with a set of commands
3. q: end recording
4. @{reg}: replay the macro, however many times you want (could enter visual mode before replay)

For simple examples, could see this video in Chinese (opens new window).

Autocomplete

We programmers always need the autocomplete feature in IDE to help us code better and faster. There are 3 common commands:

• <C-n><C-p>: complete word
• <C-x><C-f>: complete file name
• <C-x><C-o>: complete code (needs to: 1. :filetype on: turn on check for file type. 2. Install plugins for specific programming language)

In the dropdown list, <C-n> to go down and <C-p> to go up.

How to type Chinese in Vim

To type Chinese in Vim on Mac, I found an answer here (opens new window), which uses caps lock when using Chinese input method to type in English.

Simply put, could switch the input method back to English.

Useful tricks

1. Change "ba" to "ab": move the cursor to "b", x to cut the char "b" and store into an unnamed reg, paste after current char "a" to change to "ab"

2. If we have :set autoindent, copied some text from web, but paste in Vim by <Ctrl-v> or <Cmd-v>, we might get pasted text with wrong indentation. To solve the problem, under normal mode, we could do one of the following:

   • :set paste, paste by <Ctrl-v> or <Cmd-v>, and :set nopaste
   • :set clipboard=unnamed and p

3. Under normal mode:

• ~: change case of letter
• gi: go to the position of last edit
• zz centers current line on the screen
• zt makes current line at top of screen
• zb makes current line at bottom of screen

Cliffhanger

The next blog focuses on how to customize your .vimrc.