vim-tricks/vim_tricks.md

Vim

I just noted down some vim commands/ motions /concepts etc. that were previously unknown to me. I will probably make this more readable and consistent sometime. It's not complete as i am not finished learning vim. Basics like navigating with hjkl were omitted. If you're reading this to learn, start with the :vimtutor.

Basic Commands

• u undo
• ctrl + r redo

Makros

• q to start recording
• w assign w to recording
• ... input key sequence
• q to end recording
• 85@w play recoding/makro 85 times

Searching and Replacing

• /test jump to test in current line

• :[range]s/{pattern}/{string}/[flags] [count]

• ????????????:%s/test/penis/g

  • replace test with penis in whole file
  • /g is for "global" - whole line
  • % is the range -> entire file
  • % == filename

• If you changed the default case setting and you want to perform case sensitive search, use the I flag:

  • :%s/test/penis/gi

• You can match regex here too, just keep in mind to escape things like + -> \+

• more here: https://linuxize.com/post/vim-find-replace/

  view search results

• It is n for next and N for previous.

  jump to the next/previous instance of the current word

• Put the cursor on a word and hit the * key and you will jump to the next instance of that word.

  The # key does the same, but it jumps to the previous instance of the word.

Deleting until

• dtc delete upto but not including c
• dfc delete upto and including c
• d$ delete until end of line
• dG delete until end of file
• dgg delete until start of file
• di( delete in ()
  • printf("test"); - "test" would be deleted
• da( delete around (
  • printf("test"); - ("test") would be deleted

Comment/ Uncomment multiple lines

Put your cursor on the first # character, press Ctrl V (or Ctrl Q for gVim), and go down until the last commented line and press x, that will delete all the # characters vertically.

For commenting a block of text is almost the same:

1. First, go to the first line you want to comment, press Ctrl V. This will put the editor in the VISUAL BLOCK mode.
2. Then using the arrow key and select until the last line
3. Now press Shift I, which will put the editor in INSERT mode and then press #. This will add a hash to the first line.
4. Then press Esc (give it a second), and it will insert a # character on all other selected lines.

.vimrc customization

add these two lines to be able to customize your vimrc while still retaining the defaults

• unlet! skip_defaults_vim
• source $VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim
• Comment lines out with "

Setting line numbers

• :set number and :set nonumber respectively for normal line numbers
  • toggling is possible with :set number!
• :set relativenumber (:set rnu) and :set norelativenumber (:set nornu) respectively for relative line numbers
  • toggling is possible with :set relativenumber! (:set rnu!)
• When both are active at the same time (:set number relativenumber (:set number rnu)) Hybrid line numbering is active
  • Hybrid line numbering is the same as the relative line numbering with the only difference being that the current line instead of showing 0 shows its absolute line number.
• You can add those in your .vimrc to set those as default and not have to change that every time you open vim

A Command for Saving, Compiling and Running the Current C Code

Add this to your .vimrc:

• command M w | !gcc % -o %<.o && ./%<.o

to run it just type :M in vim

or make a Custom key Combination with the leader key (, + m):

• noremap m :w | !gcc % -o %<.o && ./%<.o

A key Combination for viewing the currently open file in Okular

• this is useful for writing markdown files and viewing them with the images, just press , + o
• noremap o :w | :silent !okular % &

Leader Key

Is by default / but can be changed with:

• let mapleader=","
  here i have set it to ,

  Vim waits for 1000 milliseconds after the <Leader> key has been pressed, so if you take too long to press the next key in the sequence it won't be matched. This timeout can be changed by using :set timeoutlen to set specific value.

Change Tab width

in your .vimrc

• set tabstop=4

  will set the tab width equal to 4 spaces

indent/ unindent lines

Normal mode

• >> indent the current line
• 3>> indent the current line and two lines below (same as 2>j)
• >k indent the current line and the line above (same as 1>k or >1k)
• << unindent the current line
• 5<< unindent the current line and four lines below (same as 4<j or <4j)
• 2<k unindent the current line and two lines above (same as <2k)
• = auto indent code, use motion commands to indicate the portion to be indented
  • =4j auto indents the current line and four lines below
  • =ip auto indents the current paragraph

You can use any motion command with > and <. For example, >} indents till the end of the paragraph.

Visual mode

• > indent the visually selected lines once
• 3> indent the visually selected lines three times
• < unindent the visually selected lines once
• = auto indent code

be able to use bash aliases in vims ! mode

Bash doesn’t load your .bashrc unless it’s interactive. To make the setting permanent, add set shellcmdflag=-ic to the end of your .vimrc file

resize vim correctly with the kitty terminal emulator

• set term=kitty

Vim motions

• Use w (word) command to jump to the beginning of the next word

• Use b (back) to jump to the beginning of a word backwards

• Use e (end) to jump to the end of a word

• Use ge to jump to the end of a word backwards

• 0: Moves to the first character of a line

• ^: Moves to the first non-blank character of a line

• $: Moves to the end of a line

• g_: Moves to the non-blank character at the end of a line

• } jumps entire paragraphs downwards

• { similarly but upwards

Vim tabs

open more than one file at startup using the -p option. If you want to open three files in separate tabs, you’d use this syntax:

vim -p file1 file2 file3

• Or in Normal mode run :tabnew filename
• You can switch between tabs using :tabn and :tabp, or you can use gt while you’re in normal mode.
• If you have a lot of tabs open, you can use :tabfirst, or just :tabfir, to jump to the first tab, and :tablast to jump to the last tab that’s open.
• Close all tabs: :qa
• To save work in all tabs and quit: :wqa