vim-manual

📖 List of shortcuts which I used working with Vim

Table of Contents

• 🖱 Cursor navigation
• 🖼 Window management
• 📝 Editor
  • Open files
  • Searching, greping etc
  • Misc
  • Settings
  • Custom shortcuts
  • Markers
• 🔮 Magic commands
  • Delete text
  • Change text
  • Copy text
  • Visual select text
• 📃 Macros
  • Record
  • Play
• ⚙️ Configuration rules
• 🔌 Plugins
  • Vimium
  • NERDTree
  • NERDCommenter
  • CtrlP
• 🔗 Links
  • Learn more about Vim
  • Plugins for Vim
• 🚧 Help

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🖱 Cursor navigation

• scroll one page:
  • Ctrl + f - down
  • Ctrl + b - up
• scroll half of window:
  • Ctrl + d - down
  • Ctrl + u - up
• scroll one line (without moving cursor):
  • Ctrl + e - down
  • Ctrl + y - up
  • zz - center vertically line with cursor
• move cursor on the viewport
  • H - to the top
  • M - to the middle
  • L - to the bottom
• move cursor on the file
  • gg - to the top
  • G - to the bottom
  • 30% - to line which is 30% of whole file
• { - move cursor to previous empty line
• } - move cursor to next empty line
• % - jump between bracket in line
• `` - back cursors to previous place
• Ctrl + ^ - return to previous file

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🖼 Window management

• Ctrl + w = - reset windows into best width & height
• move focus
  • Ctrl + w h - to left window
  • Ctrl + w j - to down window
  • Ctrl + w k - to up window
  • Ctrl + w l - to right window
• resize window
  • Ctrl + w > - decrease width size
  • Ctrl + w < - increase width size
  • Ctrl + w - - increase size
  • Ctrl + w + - decrease size
• {number}Ctrl + w _ - set window height which is set to {number} lines
• Ctrl + w _ - maximize in height
• Ctrl + w | - maximize in width
• Ctrl + w H - move focused window to the far left
• Ctrl + w J - move focused window to the bottom
• Ctrl + w K - move focused window to the top
• Ctrl + w L - move focused window to the far right

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📝 Editor

Open files

• :e FILENAME - open file to edit, replaced current window with file
• :tabe (:tabedit) - open file in new tab
• :tabc (:tabclose) - close current tab

Searching, greping etc

• :noh (:nohl, :nohlsearch) - clear highlight after search
• /foo - searching text foo in whole document (forwards)
• ?foo - searching text foo in whole document (backwards)
• :cw - show result list after searching
• :%s/foo/bar/g - replace globally foo to bar
• * - searching word where cursor is on it (forwards)
• # - searching word where cursor is on it (backwards)
• g* - searching partial words where cursor is on it (forwards)
• g# - searching partial words where cursor is on it (backwards)
• /\<foo - searching words starting with foo
• /foo\> - searching words ending with foo
• /\<foo\> - searching words foo

Misc

• so ~/.vimrc - reload configuration in opened editor
• :retab - replace current whitespaces with sets in .vimrc file
• :!ls - run command ls in shell
• Ctrl + a - increment number
• Ctrl + x - decrement number
• ZZ - write files and quit
• ZQ - quit all instances of vim
• Ctrl + z - hide Vim to background - use fg in terminal to bring it to foreground
• Ctrl + l - redraw Vim windows

Settings

• au VimEnter * NERDTree - auto open NERDTree plugin in each editor instance

Custom shortcuts

• map <F9> :NERDTreeToggle <CR> - show/hide NERDTree panel on press <F9>

Markers

• m{char} - save current position into {char}
• `{char} - go to saved mark
• :marks - display list of current saved markers

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🔮 Magic commands

{command}{text object or motion}

• Commands
  • d - delete (also cut)
  • c - change (delete, then place in insert mode)
  • y - yank (copy)
  • v - visual select
• Text objects
  • w - words
  • s - sentences
  • p - paragraphs
  • t - tags (available in XML/HTML files)
• Motions
  • a - all
  • i - in
  • t - 'til
  • f - find forward
  • F - find backward

Delete text

• diw - "delete in word" - remove single word when cursor is on it
• ds{ - delete nearest braces {}
• dt. - delete text till .

Change text

• caw - "change all word" (grab the whitespace)
• ciw - remove the word and enter to insert mode
• ci} - remove text in parentheses and enter to insert mode
• cit - remove text in HTML tags

Copy text

• yi) - copy text inside parentheses

Visual select text

• va" - visually select all inside double quotes (including double quotes)
• vi" - like va" but without double quotes
• vtq - visually select text till q letter (stop before letter)
• vfq - visually select text till q letter (stop after the letter)

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📃 Macros

Record

• q{char} - start recording
• (do the things)
• q - exit from recording

Play

• @{char}

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⚙️ Configuration rules

The best way is to put them to file (~/.vimrc). The default path for configuration.

• syntax on - enable syntax highlighting
• colorscheme molokai - set editor theme
• set number - enable line number
• set noic - don't ignore letter case, ex. in searching
• set expandtab - change tabulators to spaces
• set tabstop=4 - number of characters as indent with the TAB key
• set shiftwidth=4 - number of characters as indent with insertions
• set mouse=a - enable mouse in the editor
• set background=dark - little change for brighter colors
• set autoindent - enable automatic indention
• set hlsearch - enable highlighting after the searching process
• set incsearch - run searching process after you press any char (after '/')
• set nowrapscan - stop navigate through search result when a file is ends
• set nowrap - don't wrap lines
• set clipboard=unnamedplus - Vim use the same buffer as OS
• set guifont=Inconsolata\ 12 - change font in editor

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🔌 Plugins

Vimium

Google Chrome plugin which supports Vim navigation in the browser.

More description in the article [PL]: http://piecioshka.pl/blog/2015/01/23/vimium-plugin-do-twojej-przegladarki.html

NERDTree

Aside from panel with the directory structure. Some useful shortcuts:

• q - exit
• A - maximize window
• Ctrl + c - change currently highlighted directory as root
• Ctrl + u - change current directory as parent
• Ctrl + p - set focus on parent dir on NERDTree list
• Ctrl + o - on dir: open list with files; on a file: edit file
• s - open file in vertical split mode
• i - open file in horizontal split mode

NERDCommenter

Comment line with simple

• \cc - comment line (recognized filetype and comment in current lang)
• \c[SPACE] - toggle comment
• \cu - remove the comment
• \cs - comment line in multiline mode
• \cy - yank line and comment it
• \c$ - comment from the cursor to end of line
• \cA - put comment delimiters and set cursor between them

CtrlP

Search in: files, buffers. Some shortcuts:

• Ctrl + f - move the base of searching into the left side (switch between modes)
• Ctrl + b - move the base of searching into the right side
• Ctrl + r - search by regexp mode
• Ctrl + j - like j in a file (move cursor in search list down)
• Ctrl + k - like k
• Ctrl + t - open selected file in new tab
• Ctrl + x - open selected file in half horizontal window
• Ctrl + v - open selected file in half vertical mode

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🔗 Links

Learn more about Vim

• http://walking-without-crutches.heroku.com/ - TextMate vs. Vim - useful presentation
• http://walking-without-crutches.heroku.com/image/images/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.png - cool cheat sheet
• http://vimcasts.org/ - video cast about Vim
• http://www.vim.org/docs.php - full Vim documentation
• http://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/help/vim/ - tips and tricks with Vim
• https://www.maketecheasier.com/vim-keyboard-shortcuts-cheatsheet/
• https://gist.github.com/awidegreen/3854277
• https://www.computerhope.com/unix/vim.htm

Plugins for Vim

• https://github.com/gmarik/vundle - plugin manager for Vim
• https://github.com/ctrlpvim/ctrlp.vim - show window with last modified files
• https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree - NERDTree support editor for projects navigation
• https://github.com/ervandew/supertab - show suggest after <tab> press
• https://github.com/scrooloose/syntastic - check syntax after saving file
• https://github.com/bling/vim-airline - show fancy chars in the bottom bar, some arrows, etc.
• https://github.com/majutsushi/tagbar - show outline of methods in a file
• https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround - add a possibility to wrap string with smth
• https://github.com/Townk/vim-autoclose - if you put '(' this plugin automatically puts ')'
• https://github.com/airblade/vim-gitgutter - show plus/minus when you make changes
• https://github.com/matze/vim-move - can move up/down the current line
• https://github.com/mattn/emmet-vim - plugin for emmet - successor of zen-coding
• https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdcommenter - comments line
• https://github.com/tpope/vim-markdown - highlighter for *.md files
• https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive - shortcuts for Git commands

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🚧 Help

You can always use this:

• :h quickref
• :h SHORTCUT (:h dd, :h :s)
• :exusage - open help window and scroll to EX commands (very useful when you try to check the meaning of all Vim commands)

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Happy coding! ❤️