Cheat Sheet for vim
Image credit: Wikipedia
I will be doing this in Kubuntu 20.04.
Vim is a powerful editor that is included in most Linux distributions. I find it is far less bulky than its main competitor: emacs.
Getting Started
Vim was developed in the bad old days of single terminals. This makes its learning curve rather steep at the beginning, but once you learn that vim has a modal design, you can begin working with it. Vim starts in command mode — to enter insert mode mash the ‘i’ button. To get back to command mode press <ESC>.
To save and exit enter (in command mode): “:wq" — meaning ‘write’ the buffer to the disk and ‘quit.’ If you haven’t saved yet you will get an error from vim telling you so. If you really do want to quit then type “:wq!”
On most Linux installations there is a vimtutor tutorial available. Just type vimtutor and a prompt and off you go!
General
Split screen
Open a terminal and type:
vim first-screen.txt
You will probably want to save this file at this stage with the text “first-screen” or similar to mark it. After doing so, make sure you are in command mode and enter:
:split second-screen.txt
Mark this file as the second screen. Then type this (again, in command mode):
:vsplit third-screen.txt
As before, mark this file as the third screen. You should have something in front of you that looks something like the screenshot, depending upon how much you fiddled around with the different screens:
vim split over 3 screens
Tabs:
command mode:
tabnew <file>: open <file> in a new tab
tabn: go to the next tab
tabp: go to the previous tab
:wqa - write (save) all tabs and exit
edit modes:
gt: go to the next tab
gT: go to the previous tab
{i}gt: go to the tab in position i
Creating vim sessions.
:mksession <session-path>
I find I don’t typically need to use vim buffers.
Yanking and Pasting:
yy - Yank single line to the buffer
{num}yy - Yank num lines to the buffer
p - Paste lines to the screen
dd - Delete a single line and put it on the buffer
(num}dd - Delete num lines, put them on the buffer
Repeat Last Command
I find this extremely powerful as a quick replacement for grep.
.
That’s it. A period!
Search
/search - search for the string “search”
n - repeat search in the same direction
N - repeat search in the opposite direction
Undo & Redo
Command Mode:
:u - undo
<CTRL> + r - redo
Getting help
:help
Coding
Indenting
>> - indent one shiftwidth
<< - de-indent one shifwidth
Go to line:
{num}gg - go to line num
Inserting or deleting comments quickly
Further Reading
vi (Wikipedia)
https://www.cs.oberlin.edu/~kuperman/help/vim/windows.html
https://linuxhint.com/how-to-use-vim-split-screen/
https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/vim-tips-using-tabs/
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Quick_tips_for_using_tab_pages
https://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com
