rod.info: How-To: Vim

How-To: Vim

Documentation & resources

vimrc

Take a look at my personal vimrc for some useful vim configuration settings and tweaks.

Plug-ins

CVS & SVN

vcscommand.vim is a plug-in useful for manipulating files controlled by CVS, SVN, SVK, git, bzr, and hg. To install under Ubuntu run the following (this requires the vim-scripts and vim-addon-manager packages to be installed first):

vim-addons install vcscommand

Tag list

taglist.vim is a source code browser that provides an overview of the structure of a file making it easy to browse through source. To install under Ubuntu run the following (this requires the vim-scripts and vim-addon-manager packages to be installed first):

vim-addons install taglist

snipMate

snipMate aims to be an unobtrusive, concise vim script that implements some of TextMate's snippets features in Vim. A snippet is a piece of often-typed text that you can insert into your document using a trigger word followed by a <tab>.

More plug-ins!

See the Vim.org website for a complete list of plug-ins (or run vim-addons under Ubuntu).

Spell check

Vim (as of version 7) has a built-in spell checker. To enable the spell checker add the following to your vimrc:

	se spell
	setlocal spell spelllang=en_us
	set spellfile=~/.vim.spell.add

To make it even easier add the following, which enables spell checking with F7 and disables it with shift-F7, to your vimrc :

	map <F7> <Esc>:setlocal spell spelllang=en_us<CR>
	map <S-F7> <Esc>:setlocal nospell<CR>

You can find the above in my personal vimrc.

Here are some of the more useful spell checking commands:

zg to mark a word as correctly spelled

zw to mark a word as misspelled

zug undo zg

zuw undo zw

z= show a list of alternate spellings

:spellr repeat the last z= replacement for all matches in the current window

]s skip to next misspelled word

[s skip to previous misspelled word

For more information run :help spell inside a Vim session!

Tabs

Vim (as of version 7) has tab support. To make it a little easier to move back and forth between tabs, add the following, which maps shift-left (arrow) to move to the previous tab and shift-right to the next tab, to your vimrc:

	map <S-left> :tabp<CR>
	map <S-right> :tabn<CR>

Of course, you can find the above in my personal vimrc.

Here are some of the more useful tab commands:

:tabnew create a new tab

:tabnew filename open filename in a new tab

:tabm n moves the current tab to position n (Vim starts tab numbering from 0)

:tab split create a new tab using the current buffer

For more information run :help tab-page-intro inside a Vim session!

Useful Commands

} move cursor to the end of the current paragraph
{ move cursor to the beginning of the current paragraph
) move cursor to the end of the current sentence
( move cursor to the beginning of the current sentence
^ move to the first non-blank character in the current line
^ or 0 move to the beginning of the current line
$ or % move to the end of the current line
w or W move to the beginning of the next word
b or B move to the beginning of the previous word
fX move to the next 'X' character on the current line
FX move to the previous 'X' character on the current line
e move to the end of the next word
H move to the first line of the screen
M move to the middle line of the screen
L move to the last line of the screen
G move to the end of the file
gg move to the beginning of the file
'' move to the position before the last jump
'. move to the position where the last change was made
n% move to 'n' % of the file (n is in the range of 1 to 100)
z. center the window
gq<CR> format the line (Q also worked in earlier versions, restore with this: :nnoremap Q gq)
v start highlighting characters
V start highlighting entire lines
dw delete words from the current position onward (d2w deletes two words)
db delete words from the left of the current cursor position backwards
dl or x delete the character at the current cursor position
dh or X delete the character to the left of the current cursor position
d0 delete text from the current cursor position to the beginning of the line
d$ or D delete the entire line starting at the current cursor position
(for the following change commands, replace c with gu to make lower case, gU to make upper case or g~ to swap case)
cw change words from the current position onward (c2w changes two words)
cb change words from the left of the current cursor position backwards
cl change the character at the current cursor position
ch change the character to the left of the current cursor position
c0 change text from the current cursor position to the beginning of the line
c$ change the entire line starting at the current cursor position
. redo last command
:bufdo cmd executes cmd in each buffer in the buffer list
[[ go to the start of a section, backward
]] go to the start of a section, forward
[] go to the end of a section, backward
][ go to the end of a section, forward
:w >> /tmp/file.txt append to a file
:set list shows unprintable characters
:set noai disable auto indenting
:set paste enter paste mode (disables auto indenting amongst other things)
while in insert mode press ^P (previous) and ^N (next) to scroll through word completion matches
[count]["x]yy or [count]["x]Y yank [count] lines (default of 1) [into register x]
{Visual}["x]y yank the highlighted text [into register x]
:[range]y [x] {count} yank {count} lines, starting with last line number in [range] [into register x]
["x]p put the text [from register x] after the cursor [count] times
["x]P put the text [from register x] before the cursor [count] times
["x]gp put the text [from register x] after the cursor [count] times, leaving the cursor just after the new text
["x]gP put the text [from register x] before the cursor [count] times, leaving the cursor just after the new text
:[line]pu [x] put the text [from register x] after [line] (default current line)
:[line]pu! [x] put the text [from register x] before [line] (default current line)
:[range]s/[A-Z]/\l\0/g convert a range of lines to lower case (:[range]s/[A-Z]/\l&/g also works)
:so $VIMRUNTIME/plugins/MyPlugin.vim manually load a plugin
CTRL-w s split the window horizontally
CTRL-w v split the window vertically
CTRL-w n split the window horizontally creating a new file
:sp filename split the window horizontally opening file "filename" in the new window
:10 sp filename split the window horizontally opening file "filename" in the new window using only 10 lines
:sp +20 filename split the window horizontally opening file "filename" in the new window starting at line 20
:sp +/hello filename split the window horizontally opening file "filename" in the new window searching for "hello"
:vsp filename split the window vertically opening file "filename" in the new window
CTRL-w j move down one window
CTRL-w k move up one window
CTRL-w h move left one window
CTRL-w l move right one window
CTRL-w = make all windows equal size
CTRL-w - reduce current window height by one
CTRL-w 5 - reduce current window height by five
CTRL-w + increase current window height by one
CTRL-w 5 + increase current window height by five
CTRL-w < reduce current window width by one
CTRL-w 5 < reduce current window width by five
CTRL-w > increase current window width by one
CTRL-w 5 > increase current window width by five
CTRL-w w cycles through all windows
CTRL-w r rotates windows to the right
CTRL-w R rotates windows to the left
CTRL-w J move the current to the bottom
CTRL-w K move the current to the top
CTRL-w H move the current to the left
CTRL-w L move the current to the right
CTRL-w q close the current window