Different Vim commands, a cheat sheet

:h {command} - help page on the command
Vim's Wiki
Reference: ProVim

Content

Working with files
Main commands
Working with registers
VISUAL-BLOCK mode
Navigation, search, replace
Makefile
Buffer, window and tab management
Spell check
Editing code

Files

Open a file from the current buffer

e: path/fname - open fname
e: <Space><C-d> - list all available directories/files
e: <Tab><Tab>... - cycle through all availabe items

Moving between files

• :bn and :bp - move to the next\previous buffer in the list.
• :ls - list all available buffers.
• :b# - move between two last used (primary) buffers.
• :bf and :bl - first and last.
• :bm - next modified.
• :b <Tab> - to cycle through all the open buffers.

Saving/quitting

:w, :wq - write/write-and-close, e.g: :w filename - save as filename and continue working on original
:w filename - save as filename and keep working on original
:x - write buffer if there was a modification
:qa! - quit everything, ignore changes everywhere
:wqa - the opposite
:sav filename - save as filename and continue working on filename

Creating new files

:new [fname] - create empty buffer with horizontal split window
:enew [fname] - within the current buffer
:vnew [fname] - vertical split window
:tabnew [fname] - buffer within new tab
:only - closes all the split windows until there ish only one window left open
autocmd BufNewFile *.template # added to .vimrc - new file from template

Moving between tabs

gt, gT and {i}gt - in normal mode, go to next \ previous \ tab in position {i}
:tabn and :tabp - go to next \ previous tab
C-pgUp and C-pgDown - when in gvim

Switching the working directory

:cd ~/new/path - go to ~/new/path
:pwd - display path to current directory
:lcd ~/new/path - change directory only for current window

NERDTree - directory view

:NERDTree - open the directory browser in the current window
:NERDTreeClose - close the directory browser in the current window
<C>-w-l or <C>w-<right> - switch the focus from the NERDTree to the file view
<C>-w-h or <C>w-<left> - switch the focus from the file view to the NERDTree

Commands

[count]{operator}{[count]motion|text object}

Operators

yy - yank the entire line
p and P - paste content after\before the current cursor position
a and i - insert mode before\after the current position
f/F and t - find spicified characters to the right of current position \ until the specified character, e.g f# - move cursor to the next occurence of #
; or , - move on the next occurence of chracter defined by f or t
o and O - move cursor to the next \ previous line and enter INSERT mode
x - cut the character (selected chars)
s - substitute character (selected chars)
S - substitute entire line
u - undo
~ - swap char casing
. - repeat last insert
dd - delete current line
D or d$ - delete from the cursor to end of line
gx - open url under cursor

Motions

:h motions
0 and $ and g_ - move cursor to the start \ end \ end (exclusive newline) of line
b - move backwards through each word
e - move to the end of the word, e.g: 3e - end of third word
w - move to the start of the next word, e.g: 3w - start of fourth word
gg and G - start \ end of the buffer, e.g: 5gg or 5G - line five <C-o> and <C-i> - just to previous or the next cursor locations
% - next bracket or paranthesis
( and ) - previous \ next sentence
{ and } - start and end of a paragraph
[( and ]) - next \ previous available paranthesis
[{ and ]} - next \ previous available bracket

Operators that require motions or other commands

v and V - visual mode \ select whole line, e.g: ve - select until end of word
y and yy - yank (copy) selected text \ copy whole line
d and dd - delete selected text \ delete whole line, e.g: d2w - delete two words
c - change characters, e.g: c2w words - change next to words to "words"
gu - lowercase chars
gU - uppercase chars

Cursor and page movements

h and l - one column to the left \ right
j and k - one rwo down \ up
<C-u> and <C-b> - half \ one page up
<C-d> and <C-g> - half \ one page down
<C-e> and <C-y> - scroll page down \ up
H, M and L - move cursor to the top \ middle \ bottom of the viewport

Text objects

(i) - inside
(a) - around
(w) - word, e.g: viw - select inside a word, select the whole word no matter where the cursor is within this word
(s) - sentence, e.g: vis - select inside sentence
(p) - paragraph, e.g: vip - select inside paragraph
{}, (), [], '', "" - block and quotations, e.g: vi" - select inside quotes, va{ - select around the brackets

Insert mode commands

:h ins-special-special - documentation
<C-o> - mode to run commands in insert mode

Registers

"" - unnamed register, used after commands delete d, change c, substitute s, cut x, yank y; also it is used as last used register, e.g: ""p - paste from unnamed register
"0... "9 - numbered, used with commands yank y and delete d, e.g: viw"2y - copy whole word to specified register 2; "2p - paste from specified register 2
"a... "z or "A... "Z - named (small case overwrite, capital case - appends to the current buffer), e.g: "ay copy to register a, "Ay - append to register a
":, "., "% and "# - read only: most recently executed command \ for last edit made via insert mode \ name of the current file \ name of the alternative file
"= - expression
"/ - last search pattern :reg - view content of the registers, e.g: :reg 0 * a

Visual block

C-v - enter into VISUAL-BLOCK mode
C-c - keep the changes made to the current line but not apply them automatically to other lines
Esc - move back to NORMAL mode (and apply the changes to the rest lines of the selection of VISUAL-BLOCK mode)

Navigation, search and replace

• [count]gg or [count]G - move cursor to line count
• f and F - search forward and backward, e.g: f# - search # character
• ; and ',' - move your cursor onto next occurence of the character you tried to match with f and F
• / - using in regex search command, e.g: /function - finds all occurences of word function
• n and N - navigates throughout the search results from / operator
• % - detects a block (bracket) and moves to a closing one
• vt{x} and va{x} - select until and select around the block, e.g: va{, va[t) - select around [ and til )
• :s/{pattern}/{replacement}/{flags} - find and replace, e.g: :%s/foo/bar/gc - Change each foo to bar, but ask for confirmation first (flag g stands for global and c - confirmation first). To search/replace only within the selected lines: go to the visual mode (e.g. <Shift>V) and select the number of lines; then use something like: :s/search_word/new_word - it will replace all the matched words within the selection.

:find foo.txt or :sfind foo.txt - search specific file or open it in a split window
/searchword or ?searchword - highlight "searchword"
n or N - to navigate through each match
* or # - search forward or backward for word where the cursor is

Makefile

:map <f9> :make - vimrc, map the to run make
:set makeprg - change what :make does
:copen - open a mini-window with list of errors; hit enter on an error to jump to line
:cclose - closes the mini-window
:cw - toggles the mini-window (if errors exist)
:cn - goto the next error in source code
:cp - goto the previous error in source code
:cfirst - goto the first error in source code
:clast - goto the last error in source code
map cn <esc>:cn<cr> - in vimrc to map :cn command
map cp <esc>:cp<cr> - in vimrc to map :cp command

Buffer/window/tab management

:ls - list all currently open buffers
:sba or :vert sba - split all the open windows into horizontal / vertical windows
:bd *.ext - "buffer delete": close all windows with .ext extension
:bd 1 3 5 - buffer delete and number(-s) :4,7 bd - buffer delete using range
:bufdo bd - close all at once
:sp [file] or :vs [file] or split - create horizontal/vertical window split (and opens [filename] in there)
:on or :only - close all but current one
<C-w>H or <C-w>J or <C-w>K or <C-w>L - left/down/up/right - changing the window layout
<C-w>h or <C-w>j or <C-w>k or <C-w>l - changing focus of the view window
:resize +{n} or :resize -{n} - increase / reduce the window height by {n} amount
:vertical resize +{n} or :vertical resize -{n} - same as above but for width
<C-w>_ - maximize the window height
<C-w>| - maximize the window width
<C-w>= - resize all windows to balanced dimensions
<C-w>T - move current window into its own tab
:tabnew - create new tab
gt and gT - move between the tabs
:tabonly - close all but current tab
:tabmove 1 - rearrange tabs

Plugins

:NERDTree - open file manager

• <C-w> <left> or <C-w> <right> - move between file manager and main vim window
• r - updates the current folder content on NERDTree

Spell check

:set spell spelllang=en_us - turn the spell on with specified language (US English)
:setlocal spell spelllang=en_us - use it only for local buffer
:set nospell - turn the spell off
[s and ]s - move between the misspelled words
z= - once the curson is on the word, the command will provide a list of possible corrections
zg - add the word to dictionary
zw - mark the word as incorrect
set spell spelllang=en_us - add to vimrc to remember the language setting

Working with code

Commenting using NERDCommenter

• \cc - comment in visual mode the selected lines.
• \cn - same as above but enforce nesting.
• \<Space> - toggle the comment state of the selected lines based on the state of the topmost line.
• \cy - yank and comment.
• \cs - comment sexily.