1.3. Vim Tips

Using backspace/delete

Add this to your .vimrc

:set backspace=2

Using mouse in vim

# in your .vimrc
:set mouse=a
# for NERDTree
let g:NERDTreeMouseMode=3 

Display current working file path and name

:echo expand('%:p')

Replacing

# replace " at the beginning of each lines with four spaces. Note a space after ".
:%s/^ /    / # note that you don't need the last / but there are four spaces.
# move intentation to left for every line
:%normal <<

Select all and yank

gg"+yG

:%y+

Reload .vimrc from Vim

# if you are in .vimrc
:so %
# from other file
:so $MYVIMRC

# check your .vimrc
:echo $MYVIMRC

Or add the following to your .vimrc to auto-load

ex1

augroup myvimrchooks
    au!
    autocmd bufwritepost .vimrc source ~/.vimrc
augroup END

ex2 Auto-Reload Your Vimrc

augroup reload_vimrc " {
    autocmd!
    autocmd BufWritePost $MYVIMRC source $MYVIMRC
augroup END " }

No highlight after search

After a search words are hightlighted. but using :noh or :nohl hightlight will be disabled. If you want it back then type n.

:noh

vim and shell

# go to shell
:sh 
:shell
# go back to vim
exit

# go to shell
ctrl+z
# go back to vim
fg

Save as

:w ~/dirname/filename.md
# to overwrite
:w! ~/dirname/filename.md

Printing vim doc

Print it out from a browser.

# change to html
:TOhtml
# save it
:w ~/Documents/filename.html
# open it in a browser and print it out
# or save it as a txt and open it from another programme and print it out.

Delete all

:%d

% is all lines in range. So you can use :%s/old/new/g to substitute all.

Range

Range

1 # first line
$ # last line
. # current line
% # all lines
21,25 # lines 21 to 25 inclusive
.,$ # current line to end