To run Vim, type vim or vim filename from the command line. Or you can use the graphical version gvim, which pops up its own window.
Vim is a modal editor, meaning that at any time you are in one of several modes (normal mode, insert mode, replace mode, operator-pending mode, etc.), and the interpretation of keystrokes depends on which mode you are in. So typing jjjj in normal mode moves the cursor down four lines, while typing jjjj in insert mode inserts the string jjjj at the current position. Most of the time you will be in either normal mode or insert mode. There is also a command mode entered by hitting : that lets you type longer commands, similar to the Unix command-line or M-x in Emacs.
1. My favorite Vim commands
1.1. Normal mode
- :h
- Get help. (Hit Enter at the end of any command that starts with a colon.)
- Escape
- Get out of whatever strange mode you are in and go back to normal mode. You will need to use this whenever you are done typing code and want to get back to typing commands.
- i
Enter insert mode. You will need to do this to type anything. The command a also enters insert mode, but puts new text after the current cursor position instead of before it.
- u
Undo. Undoes the last change you made to the current buffer. Type it again to undo more things. If you undid something by mistake, c-R (control R) will redo the last undo (and can also be repeated).
- :w
Write the current file to disk. Use :w filename to write it to filename. Use :wa to write all files that you have modified. The command ZZ does the same thing without having to hit Enter at the end.
- :e filename
- Edit a different file.
- :q
Quit. Vi will refuse to do this if you have unwritten files. See :wa for how to fix this, or use :q! if you want to throw away your changes and quit anyway. The shortcuts :x and :wq do a write of the current file followed by quitting.
- h, j, k, l
- Move the cursor left, down, up, or right. You can also use the arrow keys (in both normal mode and insert mode).
- x
- Delete the current character.
- D
- Delete to end of line.
- dd
Delete all of the current line. This is a special case of a more general d command. If you precede it with a number, you can delete multiple lines: 5dd deletes the next 5 lines. If you replace the second d with a motion command, you delete until wherever you land: d$ deletes to end of line (D is faster), dj deletes this line and the line after it, d% deletes the next matching group of parantheses/braces/brackets and whatever is between them, dG deletes to end of file—there are many possibilities. All of these save what you deleted into register "" so you can get them back with p.
- yy
Like dd, but only saves the line to register "" and doesn't delete it. (Think copy). All the variants of dd work with yy: 5yy, y$, yj, y%, etc.
- p
Pull whatever is in register "". (Think paste).
- << and >>
- Outdent or indent the current line one tab stop.
- :make
Run make in the current directory. You can also give it arguments, e.g., :make myprog, :make test. Use :cn to go to the next error if you get errors.
- :!
Run a command, e.g., :! echo hello world or :! gdb myprogram. Returns to Vim when the command exits (control-C can sometimes be helpful if your command isn't exiting when it should). This works best if you ran Vim from a shell window; it doesn't work very well if Vim is running in its own window.
1.2. Insert mode
- control-P and control-N
These are completion commands that attempt to expand a partial word to something it matches elsewhere in the buffer. So if you are a good person and have named a variable informativeVariableName instead of ivn, you can avoid having to type the entire word by typing inf<control-P> if it's the only word in your buffer that starts with inf.
- control-O and control-I
- Jump to the last cursor position before a big move / back to the place you jumped from.
- ESC
- Get out of insert mode!
2. Settings
Unlike Emacs, Vim's default settings are not very good for editing C programs. You can fix this by creating a file called .vimrc in your home directory with the following commands:
You can download this file here: sample.vimrc. In Vim, you can type e.g. :help backup to find out what the setting does. Note that because .vimrc starts with a ., it won't be visible to ls unless you use ls -a or ls -A.