IdeaVim

IdeaVim is a Vim emulation plugin for IDEs based on the IntelliJ Platform. IdeaVim can be used with IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, CLion, PhpStorm, WebStorm, RubyMine, AppCode, DataGrip, GoLand, Rider, Cursive, and Android Studio.

Contact maintainers:

• Bug tracker
• @IdeaVim on Twitter
• Chat on gitter
• Unofficial discord server

Resources:

• Plugin homepage
• Changelog
• Continuous integration builds

Setup

• IdeaVim can be installed via Settings | Plugins. See the detailed instructions.

• Use Tools | Vim Emulator to enable or disable emulation.

• Use the ~/.ideavimrc file as an analog of ~/.vimrc (learn more). The XGD standard is supported, as well.

• Shortcut conflicts can be resolved by using:

  • On Linux & Windows: File | Settings | Editor | Vim Emulation & File | Settings | Keymap,
  • On macOS: Preferences | Editor | Vim Emulation & Preferences | Keymap,
  • Regular Vim mappings in the ~/.ideavimrc file.

Get Early Access

Would you like to try new features and fixes? Join the Early Access Program and receive EAP builds as updates!

1. Click the IdeaVim icon in the status bar | EAP | Get Early Access...

Or subscribe to EAP updates manually:

1. Open Settings | Plugins
2. Click the gear icon ⚙️, select Manage Plugin Repositories, and add the following url: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugins/eap/ideavim

See the changelog for the list of unreleased features.

It is important to distinguish EAP builds from traditional pre-release software. Please note that the quality of EAP versions may at times be way below even usual beta standards.

You can always leave your feedback with:

• @IdeaVim in Twitter
• Bug tracker

Summary of Supported Vim Features

Here are some examples of supported vim features and commands:

• Normal / insert / visual / select / etc. modes
• Motion / deletion / change / window / etc. commands
• Key mappings
• Marks / Macros / Digraphs / Registers
• Some set commands
• Full Vim regexps for search and search/replace
• Vim web help
• ~/.ideavimrc configuration file

Emulated Vim plugins:

• vim-easymotion
• vim-surround
• vim-multiple-cursors
• vim-commentary
• argtextobj.vim
• vim-textobj-entire
• ReplaceWithRegister
• vim-exchange [To Be Released]

See also:

• The list of all supported commands
• Top feature requests and bugs

Files

• ~/.ideavimrc
  • Your IdeaVim-specific Vim initialization commands

Example (click to see)

""" Map leader to space ---------------------
let mapleader=" "

""" Plugins  --------------------------------
set surround
set multiple-cursors
set commentary
set argtextobj
set easymotion
set textobj-entire
set ReplaceWithRegister

""" Plugin settings -------------------------
let g:argtextobj_pairs="[:],(:),<:>"

""" Common settings -------------------------
set showmode
set so=5
set incsearch
set nu

""" Idea specific settings ------------------
set ideajoin
set ideastatusicon=gray
set idearefactormode=keep

""" Mappings --------------------------------
map <leader>f <Plug>(easymotion-s)
map <leader>e <Plug>(easymotion-f)

map <leader>d :action Debug<CR>
map <leader>r :action RenameElement<CR>
map <leader>c :action Stop<CR>
map <leader>z :action ToggleDistractionFreeMode<CR>

map <leader>s :action SelectInProjectView<CR>
map <leader>a :action Annotate<CR>
map <leader>h :action Vcs.ShowTabbedFileHistory<CR>
map <S-Space> :action GotoNextError<CR>

map <leader>b :action ToggleLineBreakpoint<CR>
map <leader>o :action FileStructurePopup<CR>

You can read your ~/.vimrc file from ~/.ideavimrc with this command:

source ~/.vimrc

Please note that IdeaVim currently parses ~/.ideavimrc & ~/.vimrc files via simple pattern-matching. See VIM-669 for proper parsing of VimL files.

Also note that if you have overridden the user.home JVM option, this will affect where IdeaVim looks for your .ideavimrc file. For example, if you have -Duser.home=/my/alternate/home then IdeaVim will source /my/alternate/home/.ideavimrc instead of ~/.ideavimrc.

Alternatively, you can set up initialization commands using XDG standard. Put your settings to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME$/ideavim/ideavimrc file.

Emulated Vim Plugins

See doc/emulated-plugins.md

Changes to the IDE

Executing IDE Actions

IdeaVim adds two commands for listing and executing arbitrary IDE actions as Ex commands or via :map command mappings:

• :actionlist [pattern]
  • Find IDE actions by name or keymap pattern (E.g. :actionlist extract, :actionlist <C-D)
• :action {name}
  • Execute an action named NAME

Examples:

" Map \r to the Reformat Code action
:map \r :action ReformatCode<CR>

" Map <leader>d to start debug
:map <leader>d :action Debug<CR>

" Map \b to toggle the breakpoint on the current line
:map \b :action ToggleLineBreakpoint<CR>

Undo/Redo

The IdeaVim plugin uses the undo/redo functionality of the IntelliJ Platform, so the behavior of the u and <C-R> commands may differ from the original Vim. Vim compatibility of undo/redo may be improved in future releases.

See also unresolved undo issues.

Escape

Using <Esc> in dialog windows remains problematic. For most dialog windows, the Vim emulator is put into insert mode with <Esc> not working. You should use <C-c> or <C-[> instead. In some dialog windows, the normal mode is switched by default. The usage of the Vim emulator in dialog windows is an area for improvement.

See also unresolved escape issues.

💎 Contributing

The power of contributing drives IdeaVim 💪. Even small contributions matter!

See CONTRIBUTING.md to start bringing your value to the project.

Authors

See AUTHORS.md for a list of authors and contributors.

IdeaVim tips and tricks

• Use the power of IJ and Vim:

  • set ideajoin to enable join via the IDE. See the examples.
  • Make sure ideaput is enabled for clipboard to enable native IJ insertion in Vim.
  • Sync IJ bookmarks and Vim marks: set ideamarks
  • Check out more ex commands.

• Use your vim settings with IdeaVim. Put source ~/.vimrc in ~/.ideavimrc.

  ⚠️ Please note that IdeaVim currently parses ~/.ideavimrc & ~/.vimrc files via simple pattern-matching. See VIM-669 for proper parsing of VimL files.

• Control the status bar icon via the ideastatusicon option.

• Not familiar with the default behaviour during a refactoring? See the idearefactormode option.

Some facts about Vim

Let’s relax and have some fun now! Here are a few things we've found interesting during development and would like to share with you.

• There are no such commands as dd, yy, or cc. For example, dd is not a separate command for deleting the line, but a d command with a d motion.
  Wait, but there isn't a d motion in Vim! That’s right, and that’s why Vim has a dedicated set of commands for which it checks whether the command equals to motion and if so, it executes _ motion instead.
  _ is an interesting motion that isn't even documented in vi, and it refers to the current line. So, commands like dd, yy, and similar ones are simply translated to d_, y_, etc. Here is the source of this knowledge.

• x, D, and & are not separate commands either. They are synonyms of dl, d$, and :s\r, respectively. Here is the full list of synonyms.

• Have you ever used U after dd? Don't even try.

• A lot of variables that refers to visual mode start with two uppercase letters, e.g. VIsual_active. Some examples.

• Other strange things from vi:

  • ":3" jumps to line 3
  • ":3|..." prints line 3
  • ":|" prints current line

• Vim script doesn't skip white space before comma. F(a ,b) => E475.

License

IdeaVim is licensed under the terms of the GNU Public License version 2 or any later version.