Getting Started
Vim Action = Operator + Motion
Operators
| Trigger | Effect |
|---|---|
c | Change |
d | Delete |
y | Yank |
g~ | Switch case |
gu | Lowercase |
gU | Uppercase |
> | Shift right |
< | Shift left |
= | Autoindent |
Custom Operator
| Trigger | Effect | Plugin |
|---|---|---|
z | to the next search result | vim-sneak |
s | to surround text object with quotes, brackets or HTML tags | vim-srround |
Motions
Left-Right Motions
| Trigger | Effect | ||
|---|---|---|---|
h | characters to the left | ||
l | characters to the left | ||
0 | to the first character of the line | ||
^ | to the first non-blank character of the line | ||
$ | to the end of the line | ||
f{char} | to the first occurrence of {char} to the right | ||
F{char} | to the first occurrence of {char} to the left | ||
t{char} | till before the first occurrence of {char} to the right | ||
T{char} | till before the first occurrence of {char} to the left |
Up-Down Motions
| Trigger | Effect |
|---|---|
j | line downward linewise |
k | line upward linewise |
gg | goto line [count], default first line |
G | goto line [count], default last line |
Word-Motions
| Trigger | Effect |
|---|---|
w | jump by start of words (punctuation considered words) |
W | jump by words (spaces separate words) |
e | jump to end of words (punctuation considered words) |
E | jump to end of words (no punctuation) |
b | jump to start of words (punctuation considered words) |
B | jump to start of words (no punctuation) |
Text Object Motions
| Trigger | Effect |
|---|---|
( | sentences backward |
) | sentences forward |
{ | paragraphs backward |
} | paragraphs forward |
Text Object Selection
| Modifiers | Effect |
|---|---|
a | a …, leading or trailing white space is included, but not counted. |
i | inner …, white space between words is counted too. |
| Object | Effect |
|---|---|
w W | word |
s | sentence |
p | paragraph |
[ ] | bracket block |
{ } | brace block |
( ) | parenthesis block |
< > | angle bracket block |
t | html tag block |
" ' | quote block |
Vim Tips
Number Increment and Decrement
Pressing <kbd>C-a</kbd> or <kbd>C-x</kbd> to increse or decrease a number by 1. If the current cursor is not a number, it will find the first number of the current line.
Multiline Operation
Press <kbd>C-v</kbd> to enter Visual-Block mode, then select target lines, then do operation on one line. For insert, use <kbd>I</kbd> to enter insert mode.
Make Correction in Insert Mode
| Keystrokes | Effect |
|---|---|
| <kbd>C-h</kbd> | delete back one character |
| <kbd>C-w</kbd> | delete back one word |
| <kbd>C-u</kbd> | delete back one line |
Go back to Normal Mode in Insert Mode
| Keystrokes | Effecct |
|---|---|
| <kbd>Esc</kbd> | switch to normal mode |
| <kbd>C-[</kbd> | switch to normal mode |
| <kbd>C-o</kbd> | switch to insert-normal mode |
In insert-normal mode, we can excute a single command then switch to insert mode immediately.
Paste from a Register without Leaving Insert Mode
Pressing <kbd>C-r {register}</kbd> in insert mode.
Pressing <kbd>C-r C-p {register}</kbd> to insert text literally and fix any unintended indentation.
Evaluate an Expression from Register
Pressing <kbd>C-r={expression}</kbd> to evaluate an expression and paste it directly without leaving insert mode.
Insert Character From ASCII Code or Unicode
From insert mode, type <kbd>C-v{code}</kbd> with a three-digit number to insert a character.
For example, A can be inserted with <kbd>C-v065</kbd>.
Unicode characters can be inserted using a four-digit hexademical code.
For example, ¿ can be inserted with <kbd>C-vu00bf</kbd>.
Besides, we can insert character literal by using <kbd>C-v{char}</kbd>.
For example, we can insert a tab with <kbd>C-v<Tab></kbd>.
Insert Digraph in Insert Mode
æ can be inserted using <kbd>C-vae</kbd>, and ¿ can be inserted using <kbd>C-v?I</kbd>.
Overwriting Text with Replace Mode
Press R to enter replace mode, then the following typed characters will overwrite existing text.
A tab character is visually of multi-character length, but it represents a single character. And replace mode treats a tab as s single character.
In virtual replace mode, triggered by pressing <kbd>gR</kbd>, a tab chracter is treated as multuple characters as in tabstop setting.
Use r{char} or gr{char} to apply a single replacement.
Selecting with Visual Mode
There’re three visual mode variants, character-wise, line-wise and block-wise visual mode, triggered by <kbd>v</kbd> <kbd>V</kbd> <kbd>C-v</kbd> respectively.
In visual mode, one end of the selected text is fixed, and the other moves freely with our cursor. We can use <kbd>o</kbd> to go to the other end of selected text.
Press <kbd>gv</kbd> to reselected the last visual selection.