Vim Notebook

What is Vim?

Vim (Vi IMproved) is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems.

I am using Vim for monitoring log files, modifying scripts and environment files for DevOps tasks. Occasionally, I switch to frontend and backend development, where I might forget some commands. Here are some notes for myself, and hopefully, they help others too!

Basic Movements

Command	Description
h	Move cursor left
j	Move cursor down
k	Move cursor up
l	Move cursor right
gg	Go to the first line of the file
G	Go to the last line of the file
w	Move to the beginning of the next word
e	Move to the end of the current word
b	Move to the beginning of the previous word
0	Move the cursor to the beginning of the current line
$	Move the cursor to the end of the current line
W	Move the cursor to the beginning of the next WORD (a WORD is a sequence of non-whitespace characters)
}	Move the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph
{	Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph
%	Move the cursor to the matching bracket or parenthesis

Editing Commands

Command	Description
i	Enter insert mode before the cursor
o	Insert a new line below the current line and enter insert mode
O	Insert a new line above the current line and enter insert mode
dd	Delete the current line
yy	Yank (copy) the current line
p	Paste the yanked or deleted text after the cursor
J	join the current line with the next line
u	Undo the last change
r	Replace the character under the cursor with the next character typed
s	Delete the character under the cursor and enter insert mode
x	Delete the character under the cursor
Ctrl + r	Redo the undone change
:w	Save the file
:q	Quit Vim
:wq	Save and quit
:q!	Quit without saving

Searching and Replacing

Command	Description
/pattern	Search for pattern
n	Repeat search in the same direction
N	Repeat search in the opposite direction
:s/foo/bar/g	Replace foo with bar in the file
:%s/old/new/g	Replace all instances of old with new

Control

Command	Description
Ctrl + o	Jump back to the previous position
Ctrl + i	Jump forward to the next position
Ctrl + f	Move the cursor forward one screen
Ctrl + b	Move the cursor backward one screen
Ctrl + d	Move the cursor down half a screen
Ctrl + u	Move the cursor up half a screen
Ctrl + g	Show the current cursor position in the document
Ctrl + w	Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl + y	Copy the character above the cursor and insert it at the cursor position
Ctrl + e	Copy the character below the cursor and insert it at the cursor position
Ctrl + r	Enter register mode (used for copying and pasting text)

Customisation

Command	Description
:set number	Show line numbers
:set hlsearch	Highlight all search matches
:set ignorecase	Ignore case when searching
:set tabstop=4	Set the tab width to 4 spaces
:set expandtab	Convert tabs to spaces
:set mouse=a	Enable mouse support in Vim