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Learning Editors (Vim)

Source link: Editors (Vim) · Missing Semester

How to Learn a New Editor

• Start with a tutorial (i.e. this lecture, plus resources that we point out)
• Stick with using the editor for all your text editing needs (even if it slows you down initially)
• Look things up as you go: if it seems like there should be a better way to do something, there probably is

Philosophy of Vim

• Vim is a modal editor: it has different modes for inserting text vs manipulating text.
• Vim is programmable (with Vim script and also other languages like Python).
• Vim’s interface itself is a programming language: keystrokes (with mnemonic names) are commands, and these commands are composable.
• Vim avoids the use of the mouse, because it’s too slow; Vim even avoids using the arrow keys because it requires too much movement.

Modal Editing

• Vim has multiple operating modes:
• Normal: for moving around a file and making edits
• Insert: for inserting text
• Replace: for replacing text
• Visual (plain, line, or block): for selecting blocks of text
• Command-line: for running a command
• Change modes by pressing <ESC> (the escape key) to switch from any mode back to Normal mode.
• From Normal mode:
• Enter Insert mode with i
• Replace mode with R
• Visual mode with v
• Visual Line mode with V
• Visual Block mode with <C-v> (Ctrl-V, sometimes also written ^V)
• Command-line mode with :

Basics

• Inserting text: Though not particularly efficient if you’re spending all your time editing from Insert mode.
• Buffers, tabs, and windows
• Command-line:
• :q quit (close window)
• :w save (“write”)
• :wq save and quit
• :e {name of file} open file for editing
• :ls show open buffers
• :help {topic} open help
  • :help :w opens help for the :w command
  • :help w opens help for the w movement

Vim’s Interface is a Programming Language

Movement ("nouns")

• Basic movement: hjkl (left, down, up, right)
• Words: w (next word), b (beginning of word), e (end of word)
• Lines: 0 (beginning of line), ^ (first non-blank character), $ (end of line)
• Screen: H (top of screen), M (middle of screen), L (bottom of screen)
• Scroll: Ctrl-u (up), Ctrl-d (down)
• File: gg (beginning of file), G (end of file)
• Line numbers: :{number}<CR> or {number}G (line {number})
• Misc: % (corresponding item)
• Find: f{character}, t{character}, F{character}, T{character}
• Find/to forward/backward {character} on the current line
• , / ; for navigating matches
• Search: /{regex}, n / N for navigating matches

Selection

• Visual modes:
• Visual: v
• Visual Line: V
• Visual Block: Ctrl-v
• Can use movement keys to make selection.

Edits ("verbs")

• i enter Insert mode
• For manipulating/deleting text, want to use something more than backspace
• o / O insert line below / above
• d{motion} delete
• e.g. dw is delete word, d$ is delete to end of line, d0 is delete to beginning of line
• c{motion} change
• e.g. cw is change word
• Like d{motion} followed by i
• x delete character (equal to dl)
• s substitute character (equal to xi)
• Visual mode + manipulation:
• Select text, d to delete it or c to change it
• u to undo, <C-r> to redo
• y to copy / “yank” (some other commands like d also copy)
• p to paste
• Lots more to learn: e.g. ~ flips the case of a character

Counts

• Combine nouns and verbs with a count:
• 3w move 3 words forward
• 5j move 5 lines down
• 7dw delete 7 words

Modifiers

• Use modifiers to change the meaning of a noun. Some modifiers are i, which means “inner” or “inside”, and a, which means “around”.
• ci( change the contents inside the current pair of parentheses
• ci[ change the contents inside the current pair of square brackets
• da' delete a single-quoted string, including the surrounding single quotes

Customizing Vim

• Vim is customized through a plain-text configuration file in ~/.vimrc
• Download our config here and save it to ~/.vimrc.
• Instructors’ Vim configs:
• Anish
• Jon (uses neovim)
• Jose
• Try not to copy-and-paste people’s full configuration, but read it, understand it, and take what you need.

Extending Vim

• Simply create the directory ~/.vim/pack/vendor/start/, and put plugins in there
• Here are some of our favorite plugins:
• ctrlp.vim: fuzzy file finder
• ack.vim: code search
• nerdtree: file explorer
• vim-easymotion: magic motions
• Check out Vim Awesome for more awesome Vim plugins

Vim-mode in Other Programs

• Shell:
• If you’re a Bash user, use set -o vi.
• If you use Zsh, bindkey -v.
• For Fish, fish_vi_key_bindings.
• You can export EDITOR=vim.
• Readline:
• The GNU Readline library supports (basic) Vim emulation too, which can be enabled by adding the following line to the ~/.inputrc file: set editing-mode vi
• Others:
• Vimium for Google Chrome
• A long list of software with vim-like keybindings.

Advanced Vim

Search and Replace

• :s (substitute) command (documentation).
• %s/foo/bar/g: replace foo with bar globally in file
• %s/\[.*\](\(.*\))/\1/g: replace named Markdown links with plain URLs

Multiple Windows

• :sp / :vsp to split windows
• Can have multiple views of the same buffer.

Macros (More Advanced)

• // To be continued

Resources

• vimtutor is a tutorial that comes installed with Vim - if Vim is installed, you should be able to run vimtutor from your shell
• Vim Adventures is a game to learn Vim
• Vim Tips Wiki
• Vim Advent Calendar has various Vim tips
• Vim Golf is code golf, but where the programming language is Vim’s UI
• Vi/Vim Stack Exchange
• Vim Screencasts
• Practical Vim (book)