Vim - Getting Comfortable

Getting comfortable with the Vim approach to text manipulation can take a little while. The quickest approach is to force yourself to use Vim and stick at it until you finally go faster than you were before you started. This can take a few days of slowness, but it is worth it, so find a few days when you are not as busy and have time to practice.

Start with the built in Emacs EVil Tutor - SPC h T

Helpful websites for Vim commands and keybindings

• https://vim-adventures.com/
• http://www.openvim.com/
• https://www.shortcutfoo.com/
• http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Learn-Vim-Progressively/
• http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Learn-Vim-Progressively/
• http://www.vimgenius.com/
• https://www.labnol.org/internet/learning-vim-for-beginners/28820/
• http://codecondo.com/vim-commands/
• https://scotch.io/tutorials/getting-started-with-vim-an-interactive-guide

Basic Movement

Keys in Evil Normal mode for moving the cursor around the buffer.

Keybinding	Action
w	move to start of next word
b	move to start of previous word
e	move to end of current word
j	move one line down
k	move one line up
l	move one character right
h	move one character left
gg	jump to top of buffer
G	jump to bottom of buffer
$	jump to end of line
^ or 0	jump to start of line
C-v	page down buffer (visual block selection in Spacemacs)
C-u	page up buffer
f	jump to next instance of

Hint::

• Use avy for jumping anywhere in your buffers Avy commands are in the jump/join/split menu - SPC j

Hint::

$ and ^ for jumping to end and beginning of line is the same syntax as regex

Insert

Return to Normal mode using ESC or fd pressed in rapid succession

Keybinding	Action
i	Enter insert mode
o	Move to line below > Insert mode
O	Move to line above > Insert mode

Delete text

Keybindings	Actions
x	Cut current character
dw	delete current word
dd	delete current line
d$ or dD	delete from current position to end of line
di"	delete inside ""
diw	delete inside current word
dt"	delete to next " (can delete to any character)
dT"	delete to previous " (can delete to any character)
dit	[html-mode] delete contents of an html tag

Manipulate text

Keybinding	Action
C-j	Split line at cursor
S-j	Join next line to end of current line
dd or C-k	Delete current line
M-;	Insert comment characters (based on buffer mode)

Visual Mode - selecting text

Enter visual mode using v or C-SPC

S-v - visual mode line by line C-v - visual mode in region

Keybinding	Action
y	copy (yank) on to kill ring

edit-multiple-lines (visual mode)

TODO: refactor

v
shift-i
type your comment
Enter (puts the comment at the start of the line)

multi-highlight (visual mode)
v
/
name of text you want to highlight
Enter
n

Replace

The following allow you to replace text

Keybinding	Action
r	replace character
~	Uppercase current character
cw	change current word
cc	change line

C-a i/d - increasing/decreasing a number

Vim commands

:explore :registers - shows the recent actions that you have done