Free Container Store

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ever wanted to learn Vim, but weren't sure how to start? No problem. 
We have you covered! This will be the first of a four-part (possibly 
longer) series covering how to use Vim and where to start using the 
world's best text editor. 
Note that this is an article 
explicitly for beginners new to Vim. If you've been using Vim for a 
while, all of this should look entirely familiar--and you might wonder 
why some topics aren't covered. Patience. We'll get to everything in due
 time, but there's a lot to cover! 
<h2>
What's Vim, and Why Do I Want It?</h2>
Vim is the editor of choice for many developers and power users. It's a "modal" text editor based on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi">vi</a>
 editor written by Bill Joy in the 1970s for a version of UNIX. It 
inherits the key bindings of vi, but also adds a great deal of 
functionality and extensibility that are missing from the original vi. 
What the heck do we mean by modal?
 When you're using most word processors and text editors, the 
alphanumeric keys (i.e., a through z, 1 through 9) are only used to 
input those characters unless they're modified by a control key. In Vim,
 the mode that the editor is in determines whether the 
alphanumeric keys will input those characters or move the cursor through
 the document. 
For example, many text editors and word 
processors require you to use the mouse to click a menu item or icon, or
 use the Ctrl-s hotkey combination, to save a file. 
In Vim, you 
can save a file without your hands leaving the keyboard, and sometimes 
without even leaving the home keys. From Vim's insert mode, hit Escape and then :w. That's all. More on that later. 
If
 that all sounds complicated, it's not--but it can take a little getting
 used to, like driving a manual transmission instead of an automatic. 
So, why would you want to learn Vim? Even though Vim is my favorite 
editor, I'll be very blunt: you might not want to. If you're 
never going to do any system administration or heavy editing of text, 
and if you don't want to invest any time in learning the capabilities 
that Vim has, then learning Vim might not be the best use of your time. 
On the other hand, if do any of the following, you probably want to look into Vim: 
<ul>
<li>System administration</li>
<li>Programming</li>
<li>Working with HTML, LaTeX, or other markup languages</li>
<li>Heavy editing of plain text files</li>
</ul>
Even though Vim isn't as easy to use initially
 as standard GUI text editors like Gedit or word processors like 
OpenOffice.org's Writer, over a longer term you can become more 
productive using Vim. If you're a touch-typist, you'll find that your 
speed will improve even more with Vim because your hands rarely need to 
leave the "home" keys--and you'll only need to use the mouse if you 
choose to do so. 
System administrators need to know at least a 
little Vim/vi to get by simply because it's the editor most likely to be
 on any given *nix system that you need to work on. Vi is the lingua franca of system administration. 
If
 you're a programmer or working with structured markup languages like 
HTML, LaTeX, DocBook, etc., Vim is the bee's knees. It offers a number 
of features that I'll cover in later installments that make working with
 programming and markup languages much easier. 
You might be 
skeptical. I was too, 10 years ago when my boss insisted I learn Vim to 
work on the company's Web site. The first week was painful. The month 
after that was okay. Within two months, I'd have sooner typed with my 
feet than to switch away from Vim. 
<h2>
The Modes</h2>
Some 
people disagree on how many modes Vim actually has. I'm going to define 
three: insert mode, command mode, and last-line mode. Let's start with 
the default mode you'll see when you start up Vim--command mode. 
When you run vim filename
 to edit a file, Vim starts out in command mode. This means that all the
 alphanumeric keys are bound to commands, rather than inserting those 
characters. Typing j won't insert the character "j"--it will move the 
cursor down one line. Typing dd will delete an entire line, rather than 
inserting "dd." 
To enter the insert mode, type i (for 
"insert") and now the keys will behave as you'd expect. You can type 
normally until you want to make a correction, save the file, or perform 
another operation that's reserved for command mode or last-line mode. To
 get out of insert mode, hit the Escape key. 
Once you press 
Escape, you're in command mode again. What if you'd like to save your 
file or search through your document? No problem, press : and Vim will 
switch to last-line mode. Vim is now waiting for you to enter a command like :w to write the file or :q to exit the editor. 
If
 that all sounds complicated, it's really not. It does take a few days 
to start training your brain to move between the modes and memorizing 
the most important keys for movement, commands, and so on. But once you 
start getting the hang of it, you'll be surprised by how fluid it is 
editing a file in Vim. Let's walk through some of the most common 
commands that you need to know. 
<h2>
The Basics of Moving in Vim</h2>
The
 first thing you'll want to learn is how to move around a file. When 
you're in command mode, you'll want to remember the following keys and 
what they do: 
<ul>
<li>h moves the cursor one character to the left.</li>
<li>j moves the cursor down one line.</li>
<li>k moves the cursor up one line.</li>
<li>l moves the cursor one character to the right.</li>
<li>0 moves the cursor to the beginning of the line.</li>
<li>$ moves the cursor to the end of the line.</li>
<li>w move forward one word.</li>
<li>b move backward one word.</li>
<li>G move to the end of the file.</li>
<li>gg move to the beginning of the file.</li>
<li>`. move to the last edit.</li>
</ul>
Here's
 a handy tip: prefacing a movement command with a number will execute 
that movement multiple times. So, if you want to move up six lines, 
enter 6k and Vim will move the cursor up six lines. If you want to move 
over five words, enter 5w. To move 10 words back, use 10b. 
Keep that tip in mind--you'll find that prefacing other commands with a number can come in handy as well. 
The
 best way to learn is practice. Take a few minutes to try Vim out. If 
you're on a Linux system right now, open up a terminal and type vim 
filename. Enter insert mode and type a bit (or copy some of the text 
from this article into Vim) and then hit Escape to start practicing 
movement around the file. Once you feel you're getting the hang of it, 
it's time to try some editing. 
<h2>
Editing Vim Style</h2>
Now 
that you know how to move around a bit, let's try editing. Move the 
cursor to the beginning of a word. Now type x. What happened? You should
 have deleted the character that the cursor was on. Want to undo it? No 
problem. Type u (for undo) and it will be restored. 
Want to 
delete an entire word? Move your cursor to the beginning of a word 
again. Use dw. Note that this will only delete the word from the cursor 
on--so if you have the cursor in the middle of a word, it will only 
delete from that point on. Again, u will undo it. Note that Vim has 
multiple levels of undo, so you can undo the change before that and the 
change before that, etc. 
Want to undo your undo? Hit Ctrl-r. That will redo your last undo. 
Again, here's a longer list of the commands you'll definitely want to know starting out: 
<ul>
<li>d starts the delete operation.</li>
<li>dw will delete a word.</li>
<li>d0 will delete to the beginning of a line.</li>
<li>d$ will delete to the end of a line.</li>
<li>dgg will delete to the beginning of the file.</li>
<li>dG will delete to the end of the file.</li>
<li>u will undo the last operation.</li>
<li>Ctrl-r will redo the last undo.</li>
</ul>
You
 may have noticed that several commands combine a text operation and 
movement key. gg takes you to the end of a file, and d is used to 
delete. Combining them gives you something more powerful. Vim's like 
that. If you're working in Vim and think "hey, I wonder if I can combine
 two things I know to make something easier," the answer is often (but 
not always) yes. 
Let's move on a bit and talk briefly about searching and replacing. 
<h2>
Searching and Replacing</h2>
Now
 that you know how to enter text, make some changes and so forth, it's 
time to learn how to use search and replace in Vim. It's really pretty 
easy. If you want to search through the document from command mode, use /
 followed by the text you want to search for. So, if I want to search 
for "bunny" I can enter / and then bunny and hit enter. 
If I 
want to find it again, I hit n. If I want to look for a previous 
instance of the text, I'll use N instead, which will search the opposite
 direction through the document. 
Want to reverse the direction 
of your search? Use ? instead of / and Vim will move backwards through 
the document. Using n and N as above will reverse the direction of the 
search. 
<ul>
<li>/text search for text in the document, going forward.</li>
<li>n move the cursor to the next instance of the text from the last search. This will wrap to the beginning of the document.</li>
<li>N move the cursor to the previous instance of the text from the last search.</li>
<li>?text search for text in the document, going backwards.</li>
<li>:%s/text/replacement text/g search through the entire document for text and replace it with replacement text.</li>
<li>:%s/text/replacement text/gc search through the entire document and confirm before replacing text.</li>
</ul>
That's all pretty easy, isn't it? Now to move on to an important operation: Cutting and pasting text. 
<h2>
Copying and Pasting</h2>
You've
 already learned to delete text. The last text that you've deleted is 
stored in the buffer ready to be pasted back into the document. So if 
you've run dd and deleted an entire line, you can now hit p or P to 
paste it back into the document. This goes for single lines, multiple 
lines, and even entire documents. 
Want to select text? In 
command mode, hit V and you'll be able to move the cursor using the 
arrow keys or the standard movement keys (h, k, j, l) to highlight text.
 This is pretty easy, but can be slow. Want to copy entire lines at a 
time? Use V instead of v and you'll highlight entire lines at a time. 
Again, you can use the movement keys to highlight additional lines. 
Vim
 has a really cool trick as well. You can highlight in columns. Use 
Ctrl-v and you'll be able to highlight a column instead of an entire 
line. This can be useful when working with some text files that have 
data in columns and you want to select an entire column, but not an 
entire line. 
When you've highlighted what you want, hit y and it
 will "yank" the text into the buffer to be pasted later. So a usual 
paste operation might look like this: 
Hit v to highlight some 
text. Then hit y to yank it into the buffer. Then move the cursor where 
you want it, and use p in command mode. There you go--you've just pasted
 some text! 
The commands you most need to start out: 
<ul>
<li>v highlight one character at a time.</li>
<li>V highlight one line at a time.</li>
<li>Ctrl-v highlight by columns.</li>
<li>p paste text after the current line.</li>
<li>P paste text on the current line.</li>
<li>y yank text into the copy buffer.</li>
</ul>
You've
 done enough editing for one day and you're ready to pack it in. No 
problem. Here's how you can save the file and quit Vim. 
<h2>
Saving and Quitting</h2>
If
 you're in insert mode, hit Escape. Then enter : and you'll see a line 
at the bottom of the screen with a cursor ready to take input. 
To
 write the file you're editing, enter w. (So, you'll have :w.) That will
 write the file to the existing filename. If you don't have a filename 
or want to write out to a different filename, use :w filename. 
To
 quit Vim after you've finished, hit :q. Since Vim is your friend, it 
won't just pop out on you if you haven't saved your file. It will say 
"no write since last change," and suggest that you add ! to override. 
If
 you really want to quit, go ahead and use :q! to leave without being 
nagged.You can also exit Vim using ZZ, which will save and quit the 
file. Again, all this might sound a bit complex, but it really isn't. 
It's a bunch of smaller things to learn that when you add them all up, 
make for a very powerful package. 
For now that should be enough 
to get you started. Don't fret, though. We'll go through more Vim usage 
next week, and keep working on Vim until you're an expert. 
<a href="http://www.dissociatedpress.net/about/">Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier</a> is a longtime FOSS advocate, and currently works for <a href="http://www.novell.com/">Novell</a> as the <a href="http://zonker.opensuse.org/">community manager</a> for <a href="http://www.opensuse.org/">openSUSE</a>.
 Prior to joining Novell, Brockmeier worked as a technology journalist 
covering the open source beat for a number of publications, including 
Linux Magazine, Linux Weekly News, Linux.com, UnixReview.com, IBM 
developerWorks, and many others. 
 
fore more visit https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/228600-vim-101-a-beginners-guide-to-vim  </div>

Vim 101: A Beginner's Guide to Vim

2 Linux, Tutorial

Ever wanted to learn Vim, but weren't sure how to start? No problem. We have you covered! This will be the first of a four-part (possibly longer) series covering how to use Vim and where to start u…

Translate

Total Pageviews

Vim 101: A Beginner's Guide to Vim

Top Five Audio player for Linux

Internet Explorer 9.0

Flock 2.6.1

Firefox 27.0 Beta 8

Labels

Popular Posts

Blog Archive