Philosophy

There are 5 modes:

  • Normal / Command mode - Vim starts in this mode
  • Insert
  • Visual
  • Replace
  • Command-line

d2w delete - two - words operator - count - motion

Help

:h <term> e.g. :h movement :bd to exit (buffer ddelete)

Conventions

  • Upper case commands are usually supersized versions of their lower case counterparts
    • i inserts text at the cursor, I inserts text at the start of the line
    • w moves the cursor forward one word, W moves the cursor forward to the next space

The Basics

h left j down k up l right, 6l right 6 letters

yy yank line p paste below cursor P paste above cursor i insert text before cursor a append text after cursor

fN jump forward to first N 3fN jump forward to third N w forward one word 3w forward three words b back one word cw change word 3cw change 3 words u undow ctrl-R redo

:w write :w! write without confirmation :q quit :q! quit without confirmation :wq write and quit

Vim comes with syntax highlighting of over 500 file types. Use Ctrl-c or Ctrl-[ as equivalent keys to Esc OR just use Alt plus the normal modifier which will automatically put you back in normal mode.

:w !sudo tee % will allow you sudo rights to write to a file you didn't open with sudo permissions - ! executes a shell command, and % expands to the current filename (i.e. :w !sudo tee example.conf -> cat example.conf | sudo tee example.conf meaning editor contents are piped to the file example.conf with root permissions)