A coworker was amazed at my use of Vim, especially that I was able to navigate around files so quickly.
Here’s my advice:
Learn vim one command per day
Find a “vim keyboard command cheatsheet” and print it out.
Every day teach yourself the next command. Start at the top, move to the next command each day.
Use that command a few times to get used to it. Then force yourself to use it throughout the day.
Over the course of a few weeks, you’ll be a much better Vim user.
For example, I never used to use the { and } keystrokes. Yes,
they go previous and next paragraph, but I figured I write code, not
text, so it wouldn’t be useful.
Then those keystrokes came up on the cheatsheet so I forced myself to try it.
It turns out “paragraphs” are separated by groups blank lines.
{ and } are a great way to rapidly move up or down a long file.
If you can move, you can delete/change/yank
Here’s another thing. Now that you know a new way to move around a file, you’ll discover that many commands accept a “movement” option.
For example, d followed by a “movement” deletes in that direction.
c changes the text (deletes it, then goes into input mode), and y
yanks (copies) text in that direction.
- You already know that
hby itself moves one char to the left.dhdeletes that char. - You already know that
jby itself moves one line down.djdeletes the current and next line.
Now that you know } moves to the next blank line…
d}deletes from the current line to the next blank line.
Also, since 3} moves 3 paragraphs (you can use any integer), d3}
deletes from the current line to the next time 3 groups of blank lines
are found.
This works for other commands, such as c (change). Try cw to change the
next word… technically from where the cursor is until the end of the
current word)
Maybe you knew that % does a pretty cool thing when on any of
(){}[] chars. What do you think c% does? (Your guess is probably
right!)
How did I discover this?
True story: The summer before my senior year of college I had an internship at AT&T. I spent a lot of time in my manager’s office waiting for her to give me something to do. She had a “VI Cheat Sheet” on her cubicle wall. While I was waiting for her, I’d memorize the next command.
Ready, set, go!
Now do a search for vim cheat sheet and get started.
