A Starting Guide to VIM from Textmate

http://blog.danielfischer.com/2010/11/19/a-starting-guide-to-vim-from-textmate/

by dfischer • 16 years ago

82 39 16 years ago

blog.danielfischer.com

powdahound• 16 years ago

I think the the Command-T plugin for vim is one of the most helpful things when switching from TextMate: https://wincent.com/products/command-t

dfischer2• 16 years ago

Yes, I think I use this more than anything in my workflow.

devdas• 16 years ago

The snipmate plugin at http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2540 may be useful for other textmate users. As a non Textmate user (I use vim), I have no idea of how well it would map to their Textmate experience.

sudonim2• 16 years ago

I used to get stuck in vim when logging in to linux servers. The key things to know for any newbie...

ESC

After I learned those, I've really come to love Vim. I imagine I'd need to learn about 50 more commands before I could be really well versed. What are some other important things to know?

bradleyland• 16 years ago

Learning to exit, insert, and save the file is about as minimal a text editor skill set I can imagine. You should definitely start out by running through vimtutor a few times. The vim help is also really good. The author also provides a good list of links at the bottom of the article.

Dobbs2• 16 years ago

hjkl for moving around.

I and A insert beginning/end of line.

0 and $ go to the beginning/end of line without entering insert mode.

:%!command -- Runs the entire document through the command. If you use visual mode and then press ':!command' and it will run the selection through the command specified. Super useful for sorting a list.

Also ctrl+[ is equivalent to esc. If you rebind caps to ctrl you can easily hit escape and other commands like ^d, ^u (page down and up).

dhimes3• 16 years ago

0 and $ go to the beginning/end of line without entering insert mode

You might find ^ more useful than 0 for indented code as it takes you to the beginning of the text on the line (like the regexp).

pyre3• 16 years ago

  > Super useful for sorting a list.

Unless you have some special script/filter for specific sorting of lists, then why not just use ':sort' instead of ':!sort' (i.e. the Vim sort command, rather than piping it to /usr/bin/sort)?

gurraman• 16 years ago

I started writing the basic commands in a comment, but it got kind of long. You'd best look at a reference.

http://tnerual.eriogerg.free.fr/vimqrc.html http://www.pixelbeat.org/vim.tips.html http://www.rayninfo.co.uk/vimtips.html

I'd start with looking at commands that allow you to quickly move around in buffers first (/, f, t, w, e, b etc). Then start combining those with actions (ct", dw etc). Then "timesavers" such as macros and built-in conveniences (q, gqq, marks etc). The rest will come to you.

wyclif• 16 years ago

Python and vim: Two great tastes that go together (slides): http://www.tummy.com/Community/Presentations/vimpython-20070...

sudonim2• 16 years ago

Thanks. Learning keyboard controls can be daunting. Your advice on where to start is much appreciated.

hiteshiitk• 16 years ago

Just print this http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.gif out and stick it to your side board.

5teev2• 16 years ago

One thing I do all the time is making macros on the fly for repetitive edits with :map. E.g., switch the current and next line

:map * ddp

Then type * in command mode to execute the steps.

And if you mangle your file beyond hope with out of control macros, there's always u to undo and :q! to quit without saving.

crazydiamond• 16 years ago

Are you not aware that '*' (asterisk) searches for the next occurrence of the word under the cursor. That's one key i just can't live without. '#' (hash) does the reverse.

Why not do a 'qq' to record your macro as 'q' and @q to replay it.

eeperson• 16 years ago

Probably the most useful commands that aren't mentioned in most tutorials are:

ctrl-[ can be used in place of ESC

. repeats the last edit

rbonvall• 16 years ago

When you are experimenting, u (undo) and Ctrl+R (redo) are invaluable.

zkirill• 16 years ago

My favorite VIM color scheme. http://dengmao.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/vim-color-scheme-wom...

With Monaco 13 typeface it's bliss.

pyre3• 16 years ago

Colorschemes that use italics are hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes I prefer to use Terminus which doesn't have an italic typeface, but vim will try and emulate one horribly. (Or when using DejaVu Sans Mono at 9pt (?) because the lowercase 'd' has it's tall part cut off when in italics causing it to look like an 'a')

trafficlight• 16 years ago

http://vimcasts.org/ has some excellent howto videos on Vim.

spacemanaki2• 16 years ago

And he's writing a book on mastering Vim. "Vim’s documentation reads like a dictionary; I propose to write a phrasebook."

bphogan2• 16 years ago

I used to use VIm for years before I got my mac, and I've been moving back to it recently.

One thing I'm surprised nobody ever mentions is the ! command.

If I'm working on a file and I want to, say, commit my work, I can do

    :!git commit -a -m "committing my changes"

I used to do this a lot when working with Oracle and Bash. It's much quicker than opening another terminal for one-off commands.

matwood• 16 years ago

You can always use fugitive which wraps many git commands into vim plugin:

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2975

bphogan2• 16 years ago

Yes, that's really great too... I was just looking for an example that many people could relate to. :)

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

and :sh

drops you into a shell

Very handy.

frb2• 16 years ago

Lately I've noticed that more and more TextMate users are switching (back) to VIM. For years TextMate has been really popular, but now it looks as it's losing more and more users.

Would be interesting to know why. What made you switch from TextMate to VIM?

lenni• 16 years ago

I switched to Vim because to me it seems that TM2 is vapourware. I know Allan is trying to get it right with his second go but he is so coy about any sort of details that I lost interest in it.

spacemanaki2• 16 years ago

I'm being pedantic but, isn't it "Vim" not "VIM"? I seem to remember seeing something like a usage suggestion on the site but can't find it. It just looks silly to me, like when people write "LISP."

frb2• 16 years ago

Although I've seen people "Vim", "VIM" and "vim" I never really thought about what the correct spelling is. Most times I went with "VIM" since I always thought of it as acronym for "Vi IMproved".

But I think you're right with "Vim", since even on vim.org it's spelled like that.

zenshade• 16 years ago

One thing that can be a negative irritant for new users is how far the esc key is and how often they have to reach for it. Vi wasn't designed that way. It was designed for keyboards that had esc where the caps lock key is on modern keyboards. One solution is to map caps lock to the esc key. Another solution, the one I prefer, is to map ii instead. This can be done with the following in the .vimrc file:

imap <silent> ii <Esc>:let &insermode=0<CR>

This doesn't work so well if you are frequently editing files on multiple servers you can't edit the .vimrc file on. But for your local environment it'll make going in and out of insert mode a lot more efficient.

I'm dead used to using ii now so I'm probably not going to switch, but others have pointed out kk may be a better choice, due to greater distance between keystrokes/mode. Indeed, about one in ten times I hit ii when I don't need to.

A Starting Guide to VIM from Textmate

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