Vim 101

source: Vim tutorial for Beginners by freeCodeCamp.

in an effort not to give Vim up from the very first day. inspired by James Powell’s Vim skill in his every Python lecture.

after a few days of rolling with neovim i already have a somewhat calls sense of how to install, make the nvim config folder, do some git clone stuffs to download a bunch of i have no idea what they are to use vim in my damn window machine. can do nvim file1, :qw, :below terminal, :vsplit, but in general lots of actions i am not yet familiar with so actually could not stick with this editor.

now back to basics, i am spending Friyay night starting from scratch. Florian Dedov uses vim while i use nvim expecting both to be the same.

source programmerhumor

intro & why vim?

• less stick with your mouse, speed up your coding speed;
• all settings are customizable;
• dont need to stick with your terminal, you can use Vim keybindings in any IDE or text editor: Jupyter Notebook, VS Code, etc

installation

• i use window, i dont want to install more package manager like scoop, i dont like to use WSL, so just simply run winget install Neovim.Neovim;
• this neovim version will not include Neovim QT, alright, i will use my terminal pwsh;

neovim installation page

basics

• nvim file_name will open a file or create a file if it did not exist (but the file will not be actually created if we dont write :w ~ this is just buffer);

exit

• now if we create a file (e.g. client.py), when we press :q in will return this message:

E37: No write since last change
E162: No write since last change for buffer "client.py"   

• what you need to do is :q! (exclamation mark ~ saying you quite and dismiss any change you’ve made);
• notice that q first and ! after. :! will open the terminal, so :!q will pass the command q to the terminal (window CMD), which returns “‘q’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.”

insert and normal modes

• when we enter vim, we are in NORMAL mode. press the i or I will get you into the INSERT mode, press esc to enter the NORMAL mode;
• INSERT mode: any thing we press does not have functionality, just text;
• NORMAL mode: execute a command;
• in normal mode, press :w to save/write file;
• :wq write and quit;
• in INSERT mode, cursor points between 2 characters; in NORMAL mode cursor points a character;
• from INSERT mode, press esc and cursor will point to the up-front character, press i in the cursor will point to before that character, press a and for cursor after character;
• I = shift + i will let you get into insert mode with cursor at the begin of the line;
• A = shift + a for the end of the line;
• from normal mode, o let you create a new line below and cursor at that line;
• O = shift + o for creating line above.

line numbers

• in normal mode, :set number will activate line number;
• :set nonumber to turn off the line number;
• now this is important pattern: “an action can be repeated x times” ~ in normal mode we can move cursor up and down using up and down arrow -> if we press 5 + down arrow we will move to the 5th line below;
• 10 + right arrow will move the cursor to 10th character to the right, in the same line (?, or in the end of the line);
• you can also use h, j, k, l instead of the arrow keys, they stand for ⬅, ⬇, ⬆, ➡, respectively (extremely usefull if you can type with 10 fingers);

relative line numbers

• certainly you can use number with h, j, k, l. now if you :set relativenumber, you can have your current line indexed as 0 and easily know the number to move up & down-ward;

now if i type 14 + k i will move to the 3rd line

• easy to know that :set norelativenumber will turn this option off.

various options

• :set mouse=a activate the mouse, you can scroll or select text;
• :set mouse-=a to inactivate, the pattern -= is to inactivate any option;
• :set tabstop=4 set tab as 4 spaces
• :set shiftwidth=4 set shift width as 4 spaces
• :colorscheme slate to set the color scheme, before type “state” you can tab to select the scheme too (remember the space);

this is recommended

:colorscheme and tab to select color scheme

• every single time you close and re-open vim, these settings is by far - all gone.

.vimrc

• so you need a configuration file and every time vim or nvim is opened your config will be loaded;
• neovim will lookfor init.vim or init.lua when start;
• in terminal (pwsn in user folder window), input:

refer here

cd %AppData%
cd .. # to get out of Roaming folder
cd .\Local\
mkdir nvim
cd nvim
nvim init.vim

• then i set these config in my init.vim file:

set number
set relativenumber
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set autoindent
set mouse=a
colorscheme slate

• then :wq. now we’ve already have some handy settings when go into nvim.

keybindings

helpful keybindings

Keybindings	Actions
u	undid the actions, vim show “… change; before #x xx seconds ago”
Ctrl + R	redo
ntimes u ntimes Ctrl + R	repeat to press u for multiple undo, or you can 3 + u for 3 times undo. same for redo
i, I, a, A, o, O	back to insert mode in different ways
v	enter VISUAL mode
V	enter VISUAL model and select the whole line
d	deleting
y	yanking ~ equivalent to copying
p	pasting what we yank before (after or below the cursor)
dd	delete the whole line
5dd	delete the next whole 5 lines
D	delete from the cursor to the end of line
yy	yank the full line in NORMAL mode, same with V then y ~ select the whole line and yank
Y	same at yy
P	pasting what we yank before (before or above the cursor) Tip again remember the pattern of lowercase and uppercase
c	delete the selection (from VISUAL mode) and enter to INSERT mode
cc	delete the whole text in the line (the line was kept) enter to INSERT mode
C	delete from cursor to end of line (what c does is change, what d does is delete)
r	replacing the current cursor in NORMAL mode with 1 character press after r replacing all selection (include cursor) in VISUAL mode
w	Jump to the next word (split by space or “-”)
W	Jump to the next word (accept only space at delimiter)
b, B	The same thing for backward
dw	delete a word
2dw , d2w	delete 2 words (forward, current cursor and the next one)
2db, d2b	delete 2 words (backward, before the cursor)
diw	delete in a words
ciw , cw, cb	change in a words, next word, previous word and go into INSERT mode
e	Jump to the end of the word (E will be more strictly, only accept space as delimiter)
0, $	Jump to the begin / and the end of the line respectively
d0, d$	delete everything from cursor to the begin / end of the line, respectively -> think of c0, and c$ for aha
:h ...	seek help, :q to quite the help window

intermediate stuff

go and cook your meal:

• i - before and I - beginning, a - after and A - ending for navigating to INSERT mode;

• o - below, O - above to insert line;

• u - undo, Ctrl + R - redo;

• v - individual visual, V - visual the whole line;

• y - yanking current, Y, yy - yanking whole line;

• p - pasting after or below, P - pasting before or above;

• d - deleting current, dd - deleting whole line, D - deleting to the end of line;

• c - same with d but for changing;

• r - replacing current with 1 character, R - enter the REPLACE mode and replace with multiple characters;

• w, W - jump word forward, b, B - jump word backward;

• i - inside the word, e - end of the word;

• 0 - begin, $ - end of the line;

• repeat by press key multiple times or n - number before command;

• % - jump to the closing bracket if you are on the opening one;

• t follow by a character will let you jump cursor to before the next nearest one;

• f same with t, but to the character’s position;

• T and F for the backward;

• gg - go to the begin of the line, G for the end of the file;

• 123G or :123 will bring you to the line 123; ….

now:

• ciw - changing the whole word; but

• cib , ciB - changing the text inside the current set of parenthesis () or braces {}, respectively, you can also ci( , ci{ , ci< for the specific.

• ci" - changing the text inside double quote;

• if you want delete d, or yank y - replace the c;

• 5dw will delete 5 words, 5d5w will delete 5 words 5 times!;

• 5yy copying 5 lines;

• dt( deleting everything up till the opening bracket, df( will delete the bracket also; …

even more advanced stuff:

• indentation: >> to the right, << to the left;
• V for Visual Line mode, which will automatically select entire lines;
• Ctrl + v for Block Visual mode, which will select rectangular regions of the text;
• = for auto indentation;
• gg=G will start at the begin of the file, auto indentation till the end of file (and end of at the end of file);
• / and word follow to search the word, then n to jump to the next found, N to jump to the previous one;

Note

Re-note about the search:

• /pattern - search for pattern;
• ?pattern - search backward for pattern;
• \vpattern - ‘very magic’ pattern: non-alphanumeric characters are interpreted as special regex symbols (no escaping needed);
• n - repeat search in same direction;
• N - repeat search in opposite direction;
• # go up, * go down.

• ma: mark A -> to explore later;
• zz: centre the screen;
• :%s/old/new/g - replace all old with new throughout file;
• :%s/old/new/gc - replace all old with new throughout file with confirmations (without c is without confirmation);
• . repeat the last command;
• "+ and "* are the special registers, which you copied in the system

registers and macros

• d deleting is also copying ~ cutting, so if you y then d you will lost the current clipboard
• :reg to see the history of the clipboard;
• "7p will paste the 7th register;
• "7yy yanks the whole line into 7th register;
• "0p the last thing that i actually yanked, not d;
• qa recording macro @a, q quits recording;
• you can see the macro in :reg, @a to use the macro; …

neovim & plugins

• better, have more pluggins supported;
• config in ./nvim using init.vim or init.lua;

vim support

• can use vim bindings in VS Code, Pycharm

outro

• it is recommended to use vim bindings while coding, even if you dont like the command line.

other resources

1. Vim cheat sheet
2. Vim plug