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There are two main (extensible) text editors for Unix and GNU/Linux[fn:11] operating systems. These are the VI and Emacs lines of text editors.
Both of these text editors are highly configurable and therefore are highly recommended by many programmers, so much so that since their inception many programmers have been in a “war”, arguing over which text editor is better.[fn:12]
VI (pronounced “vee-eye”), and other text editors based off of it are great at creating and editing text, so much so that you will hear VI users call it a “language” for editing text. It is (usually) a basic text editor, however, newer versions of it allow a user to customize it and get IDE-like features within it.[fn:8] The main feature of VI is the cohesive “language” it provides for editing text.
GNU[fn:14] Emacs (pronounced “g’noo ee-maks”) is a text editor that is extremely configurable and allows for a lot more IDE-like features. This is due to the fact that Emacs is a text editor written and extensible in the general purpose functional programming language Lisp. Emacs can also emulate VI keybindings using EVIL mode (EVIL stands for Extensible VI Layer). It is also interesting to note that Richard Stallman,[fn:15] the creator of GNU Emacs, also created the first alternative to Unix, which was GNU, the Free Software Foundation, as well as the GNU General Public Licence.
From here on out we will be talking about the VI line of editors. The curious reader is encouraged to read more about Emacs, if interested.
The only differences between the different versions of VI are stated below. There may be more differences, but those won’t be important to a beginner.
I will also assume that you will be using Vim or NeoVim for the rest of this file, but will generally refer to them as Vim.
The three different VI versions you should be familiar with are VI, Vim, and NeoVim.
VI[fn:3] is the oldest text editor of the three[fn:1], which was created in 1976.[fn:18] VI is short for Visual, differentiating it from line editors. If you plan to work with many servers, you should expect literally expect every server to have it. It is very minimalistic so it won’t tell you when you are in insert mode in any way (see below), for example. This makes it harder to understand for beginners, and doesn’t have all the features of Vim.
Vim[fn:4] is the newer version of VI, first released in 1991. Due to it being very popular for a long time, and still is (last stable release: 17 May 2018), it has many resources available on the internet for it. It is also recently modern, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to use. Therefore, whenever searching for general vim resources use vim in the search terms.
NeoVim[fn:5] is the newest version of vim, first released in 2015. This has the most interactive features and therefore is the one that I would recommend to new users. For example, when you switch between different modes, the cursor changes, helping you to remember which mode you are in.
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Packages (programs) can easily be installed in any Linux distribution using the
command line. For example, to manage packages on Ubuntu Linux, use the package
manager apt. The full command to install Vim would then be sudo apt install
vim, and the command to install NeoVim would be sudo apt install nvim.[fn:13]
The first thing you need to know about Vim is that there are four main modes in which you operate. Each of these modes changes what the keys on your keyboard will do.
In general, when editing text you will mostly be making small changes, and very
rarely do you create whole documents without mistakes from start to finish (cat
> foo.txt anyone?). For this reason, Vim is optimized for modifying text.
Understanding modal editing (along with composability, repeatability, and text
objects) is the key to understanding Vim.[fn:2]
Normal mode allows you to issue commands to Vim, which will then do something,
other than putting the key that you pressed into the file. When you first open a
file you will be in Normal Mode. Pressing keys such as j or l will move the
cursor rather than adding those letters to the file. You should almost always be
in Normal Mode since editing text requires the ability to move around the
document, and deleting, replacing, copying text, etc. which are all possible in
Normal mode. Thus this mode is called “normal” since it is the default mode when
using Vim. There are three different ways to get to Normal mode: by pressing
the Esc key, ctrl-c, or ctrl-[.[fn:33]
The two main things you can do from within Normal Mode are either modifying the text, or moving the cursor around. However, as stated before, Vim gives you an easy language to talk about changes by combining the modification command with a motion command. An optional number prefix allows you to repeat the complete command that many number of times. Therefore, the template of a complete Vim command is ~<count> <operator> <motion/text-object>~[fn:32].
Some examples of the Vim text editing language are listed below, in English:
- Delete the default amount (uses <operator>)
- Move to the end of the line (uses <motion>)
- Delete to the end of the line (uses both <operator> and <motion>)
- Delete the current paragraph (uses both <operator> and <text-object)
- Paste the default amount 10 times (uses both <count> and <operator>)
- Paste the current paragraph 10 times (uses <count>, <operator> and <text-object>)
When opening a document with Vim, you will be in Normal Mode. To get into Insert
Mode, for example, you can press keys such as i or a and then you will be in
Insert Mode. If you are using NeoVim, you will see the cursor become thin, and
in both Vim and NeoVim, you will see --INSERT-- at the bottom of the
terminal.[fn:6] You can then use the arrow keys to get to the location and press
the keys to add them to the document. To get back to Normal Mode press escape.
(This is not recommended but can help you get used to Vim. Movement commands
should be done using Normal Mode, not the arrow keys or the mouse, allowing your
hand to stay on home row[fn:27].) You will notice that the cursor will become a block
again in NeoVim.
For now, the most important command mode you need to know will be the commands
to exit Vim (which is accessible from Command Mode). This is such a problem for
Vim beginners that this StackOverflow answer has 4,000 upvotes, and around 1.8
million views. First enter normal mode by pressing the escape key, then press
:. You will now see a colon on the last line of the terminal. If you wish to
save your changes type wq, and then press enter. This command stands for write
(save) the file then quit Vim. If you wish to throw away your changes type q!
instead and then press enter.
To get a deeper understanding of how Vim deals with files and why it has many
different commands for exiting Vim, let’s understand how Vim edits files. When
you are in the terminal, the file you wish to edit resides in your hard drive.
Then when you open the file in Vim, a copy of the file is put into memory for
easy access. You then modify the file using Vim. If you try to close Vim now, it
will be unsure if you were sure you wished to discard the changes or if you
forgot you made changes. At this point, you can either tell it that you wish to
discard the changes (:q!), or you forgot to save the changes (:wq). Once you
choose to save the file the copy of the file that was in memory will then
replace the version of the file on the hard drive.
Visual Mode is used for performing an operation over all of the characters in the text. This can be useful when you don’t know how to run operations using text objects. Text objects allow you to refer to regions of text, such as “in braces”, “in tag”, “all paragraph”, etc. Text objects will replace most simple uses of Visual Mode.
Before continuing to learn more Vim commands, there are a few general things to cover.
Firstly, there will be a few different modes used below. If you are ever unsure of which mode you’re in, you can always press the escape key to get you back into Normal Mode, from which you can run another command or go into another mode.
Secondly, commands in Vim are quite mnemonic and cohesive. This means that you
can easily learn the key associated with a command by remembering what it stands
for. An example of this is the d command which stands for delete. Also,
commands that are related, but do something different are capitalized. For
example, D deletes to the end of the line. Finally, the default action is defined by
repeating the key for the command. For example, dd deletes the line, which is
the default action for the delete command.
Third, instead of making your own notes of this document, you can use VI/Vim cheat sheets, such as the following cheat sheet.
Finally, the headings will help you to organize the information you learn into
compartments. The headings will be in the form CommandName (from StartingMode),
with subheadings dividing the topic into beginner~[fn:31] and ~intermediate commands.
The commands themselves will be in the form COMMAND: (mnemonic device)
Description of command.
You can enter NeoVim from the command line (not to be confused with Vim’s
Command Mode) by typing nvim file.txt~[fn:35], replacing ~file.txt for the file you
want to edit. If the file doesn’t exist, it will be created. You will now be in
NeoVim.
If you wish to use Vim, replace nvim in the command above with vim.
h: Move cursor leftj: Move cursor downk: Move cursor upl: Move cursor right
The way to remember this is that the h key is on the left of the four keys,
l is on the right, j is written with the hook below the line, and k has
the vertical line above the line.
Character movement can also be prefixed with a number such as 5l, to go 5
characters right.
^: (This is from Regexes[fn:9]) Go to start of line$: (This is from Regexes) Go to end of line
gg: (Go) Go to start of fileG: (Go) Go to end of file
50gg: (Go) Go to line 50
Frankly, I used to just spam h and l for quite a while, so these commands
aren’t strictly necessary.
w: (Word) Go forward by one wordb: (Back) Go back by one worde: (End) Go to the next end-of-word
fx: (Find Char) Find character ‘x’ forwards;: Runf/Fagain
Fx: (Find Char) Find character ‘x’ backwards,: Runf/Fagain in opposite directiontx: (‘Til/Until) Go up until character ‘x’, forwardsTx: (‘Til/Until) Go up until character ‘x’, backwards
/: (Search[fn:30]) Input search term then press enter, searches forwardn: (Next, same direction) Go to next location matching search term
N: (Next, opposite direction) Go to previous location matching search term?: Input search term then press enter, searches backward
These commands will change you automatically from Normal Mode to Insert Mode.
i: (Insert) Enter Insert Mode before current characterI: (Insert) Enter Insert Mode at the beginning of the linea: (Append) Enter Insert Mode after current characterA: (Append) Enter Insert Mode at the end of the line
o: (Open) Add new line below and go into insert modeO: (Open) Add new line above and go into insert mode
NOTE: The composable nature of Vim should be apparent in this section.[fn:26]
x: Delete character under cursordd: (Delete, Default) Delete current linedw: (Delete Word) Delete until the end of the worddfc: (Delete Find ‘c’) Delete including the first ‘c’ on the right of the cursordiw: (Delete In Word) Delete the whole worddiW: (Delete In Word) Delete the whole space delimited word
I can’t really be bothered to count how many words I want to delete. I prefer
doing things like dw.. instead, see below.
d3w: (Delete Word) Delete 3 number of words, etc.
d: (Delete) Delete current visual selectionx: (Delete) Delete current visual selection
Change deletes something then puts you in Insert Mode to add text.
cc: (Change, Default) Delete line, then go into Insert Modecw: (Change Word) Delete until the end of the word, then go into Insert Modeciw: (Change In Word) Delete the whole word, then go into Insert ModeciW: (Change In Word) Delete the whole space delimited word, then go into Insert Mode
I can’t really be bothered to count how many words I want to change. I prefer
doing things like cw.. instead, see below.
c3w: (Change Word) Delete 3 number of words, etc., then go into Insert Mode
These commands change the file while keeping you in Normal Mode.
>>: (Indent) Indent the current line>ip: (Indent In Paragraph) Indent the current paragraph<<: (Outdent) Outdent the current line<ip: (Outdent In Paragraph) Outdent the current paragraph
NOTE: To copy text to use in other applications, use the "+ prefix, which may
not work in VI/Vim, also see registers below.
yy: (Yank, Default) Yank (copy) the current line, for Vim use onlyyiw: (Yank) Yank (copy) the current line, for Vim use only"+yy: (Yank, Default) Yank (copy) the current line, for any application"+yiw: (Yank) Yank (copy) the current line, for any application
y: (Yank) Yank (copy) current visual selection, for Vim use only"+y: (Yank) Yank (copy) the current selection, for any application
p: (Paste) Paste the last deletion/yank, from Vim only"+p: (Paste) Paste the last copied text, from any application
p: (Paste) Paste, replacing current visual selection
u: (Undo) Undo last (atomic) change
First, enter Visual Mode using any of the below, then make the selection using the movement commands as you would from Normal Mode. Then run the command on the selection, such as yank, delete, etc.
v: (Visual) Enter character-wise Visual ModeV: (Visual) Enter line-wise Visual Mode
ctrl-v: (Visual) Enter block-wise Visual Mode
NOTE: To comment out lines, use block-wise selection with ctrl-v, then press
I, and type the character comment (// for example), and hit escape. It can
also be used as a poor man’s version of a macro (see below). Another way would
be to use the Vim Commentary plugin (see below), with the command gc.
All of the below can be simplified to just :w and ~:q~[fn:34], since Vim will warn
you if you try to quit with unsaved changes.
:w: (Write) Write the file:q: (Quit) Quit Vim, without having modified the file:q!: (Quit!) Quit Vim, throwing away modifications:wq: (Write-Quit) Write the file, then quit Vim:x: (Exit) Shorthand for:wq
:! date: (!is similar to|) Run bash commanddateand show the result without adding to file:r! date: (Read) Run bash commanddateand read in the result into the file- ~:s/foo/bar/g~[fn:24]: (Substitute) Substitute ‘foo’ with ‘bar’, globally (ie. each occurrence)
Visually select text then enter Command Mode using :. NOTE: you will see
~:’<,’>~[fn:7] instead. This just tells Vim to run the command over the whole
selection.
:'<,'>! wc -l: Run bash commandwc -lon visually selected text, replacing with the result
This section should introduce you to even more advanced concepts.
NOTE: All text objects can be used with delete, yank, copy, etc. “In” deletes the text inside, while “All” deletes quotes, braces, and a single space (so the spaces around it end up balanced).
iw: (In Word)aw: (All Word)is: (In Sentence)as: (All Sentence)ip: (In Paragraph)ap: (All Paragraph)i": (In Quote)a": (All Quote)i}: (In Brace)a}: (All Brace)it: (In Tag) Used in HTMLat: (All Tag) Used in HTML
The dot command repeats the last complete command that you ran. For example if
you changed a word to “Hi” using ciwHi and then escape, you can change another
word to “Hi” using the dot command.
Expanding on the above, one way[fn:10] to quickly rename variables would be to
first search for a variable using /, then using ciw to change the variable
to something else. Finally, repeat this change all throughout the document using
n to go to the next instance, and . to apply the change.
Most commands can be prefixed, meaning you can run commands like d5w which
will delete the next 5 words.
Macros can be used for creating groups of repeatable commands. In other words,
start the macro, run general commands (ie. w rather than llllllll), stop the
macro, run the macro previously defined on the text you want. The steps are:
qa: Record Macro in registera, see belowq: While recording, it will end the macro@a: Run Macro in registera
Fun fact: you can also define recursive[fn:16] macros[fn:29]. This allows you to create a single macro that runs forever (of course, Vim will stop the macro at the end of the document, for example). An example of this is the following key sequences: ~qaqqaV~j@aq@a~[fn:25], which switches the case of every character until the end of the document.
The most important part about registers is that the ~”+~[fn:17] prefix is used to store the global clipboard, which can be accessed by any program. Frankly, I don’t use any register other than the global one.
Other actions, such as yanks and deletions can be prefixed with a register, for later retrieval.
A useful combination is using registers for editing a macro you wrote. To continue from the macros section, you can write an incorrect macro, paste it into the file, modify it, copy it back to the register, and then run that macro. This seems quite difficult, but there can be really long macros that you would rather go through the above to change a character than to remake the macro from the beginning.
To change the default behaviour of Vim, and to keep it even after quitting, you must modify a configuration (also known as a dot file[fn:21]) file for Vim. For GNU/Linux and NeoVim users this file is ~~/.config/nvim/init.vim~, for Vim users the file is ~~/.vimrc~. If you use Windows, the file will be ~_vimrc~[fn:20] (in the home directory in Windows).
For example, typing ~:colorscheme elflord~[fn:22] from Normal Mode, will change the colour scheme to elflord for the current Vim session. Once you close Vim this setting will be gone. To save this setting, save the following lines in the configuration file as:
" Set colour scheme to elflord
colorscheme elflord Notice the lack of a colon at the beginning of the line. The " indicates a
line comment.
Here are some other settings you may wish to add to your Vim configuration file.[fn:23] In general, you should always copy the comments along with the actual code. (NOTE: always understand what every command does before adding it to your configuration file.)
The below file is also available as configuration.vim at
Hassan-Shabbir/vim-introduction.
" Enable filetype plugins, such as syntax highlighting for files.
filetype plugin indent on
" Enable syntax highlighting.
syntax enable
" Set line numbering to change based on Mode.
" This is especially helpful when moving n lines up.
set number relativenumber
" Set autoread to true. When a file is changed from the outside,
" the file will be reloaded.
set autoread
" With a map leader it's possible to do extra key combinations
" like '<leader>w' saves the current file. 'mapleader' is
" usually the backslash key ('\'), however, below we set it
" to the ',' key, since it is easier to reach.
let mapleader = ","
" This is how you would define "in normal mode, if I press
" the leader key (see above), followed by the 'w' key,
" map it to be the same as writing the file".
nmap <leader>w :w!<cr>
" Set a space of 3 lines between the cursor and the top/bottom
" of the window, making it easier to get the context of the code.
set so=3
" Turn on a completion menu on the bottom. Used when you try to
" tab-complete something in command mode.
set wildmenu
set wildmode=list:longest,full
" Configure backspace so it acts as it should act. Namely,
" allow backspace to delete new lines, delete past the start
" of insert mode, and delete autoindent.
set backspace=eol,start,indent
" Ignore case when searching, so '/hi' will match 'hi' in the
" text, along with 'Hi'.
set ignorecase
" If a case is used, however, search match using case. So
" '/Hi' will only match 'Hi', and not 'hi', (since we
" explicitly told the case).
set smartcase
" Highlight search results.
set hlsearch
" Make search act like search in modern browsers.
set incsearch
" Don't redraw while executing macros (for performance).
set lazyredraw
" Return to last edit position when opening files
" NOTE: Put this all on one line
au BufReadPost *
if line("'\"") > 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$")
| exe "normal! g'\"" | endifThese are a few plugins that I would consider quite useful.
- Vim Plug: Vim plugin manager
To be able to use the below plugins you need to install a plugin manager, this is the one I personally use, (no real reason).
- Vim Sensible: set default settings for Vim
This is useful for starting off in Vim. (Not needed for NeoVim.)
- Numbers Vim: add relative line numbers to Vim (great for going n lines up or down)
- Vim Commentary: (un)comment lines of code with a text object
- Vim Surround: surround text objects with text
- Vim Vinegar: simple file browser in Vim
- Emmet Vim: create HTML easily
- Ctrlp Vim: fuzzy find files
- Targets Vim: add more text objects to Vim
More plugins for Vim can be found on https://vimawesome.com.
- Bash/Zsh: Both Bash and Zsh have Vim modes that can be enabled in their respective dot-files
- Athame: Full Vim in the terminal, ie. when writing bash commands
- Vimium: Vim in Chrome
There are also other applications that will use Vim-like keybindings by default,
such as man.
The vimtutor command can be used from your shell (ie. bash). Once run,
vimtutor will guide you through some basic Vim commands.
A great way to learn more about a particular command in Vim is to use vim’s
amazing built-in help system using :help, followed by the command details
(mode, modifier, key, etc.; see :help). This is usually recommended for
understanding what a command does, since Google is sometimes less helpful.
If you only use :help and press enter, the introduction to the help system
will be shown.
Vim also has the :helpgrep command which searches the help system for the
searchterm you entered.
There are 76 Vim casts in total. It is highly recommended to start from #1, since the Vim casts get more advanced later on. All Vim casts are highly recommended.
The below are paid books from the creator of the Vim casts:
These are some Youtube videos on Vim. They have been sorted from beginner to advanced. Videos by Luke Smith (in general) and ThoughtBot (on Vim) are recommended.
- Learning Vim in a week
- Why Vim doesn’t need the mouse
- Mastering the Vim language
- Vimrc and Vim plug-in overview
- Vim macros: why and how to!
- How Vim makes my daily life easier
- How to do 90% of what plugins do (with just Vim)
The following blog post helps to motivate the use of Vim.
All arabesque posts are recommended, for example the following:
The following are fun stories written about a fictitious master and a desciple.
The Vim cheat sheet given above:
Congratulations on finishing this whole document! You should now know enough to be able to use vim, and look up whatever you need on the internet[fn:28]. To become proficient with Vim, you should use it repeatedly, until the Beginner commands come to you without much thought.
Thanks for reading, and good luck on your journey to become a Vim master!
[fn:35] You can also type multiple files after the command and switch
between them using :bn (buffer next) and :bp (buffer previous). A buffer can
be thought of as a file that Vim has open for you, that you are currently not
editing.
[fn:34] See the command mode section above for more detail.
[fn:33] Most Vim users prefer to remap the Caps Lock key to Escape, for convenience.
[fn:32] Text objects will be covered much later.
[fn:31] The ‘Beginner’ subheading will show the commands that I personally think a new Vim user should learn. Also, you only need to learn the commands that you think are necessary for yourself, coming back later to deepen your knowledge of Vim.
[fn:30] Similar to regexes and its uses in awk commands, etc.
[fn:29] See Advanced Vim macros.
[fn:28] Such as Vim Tips Wiki.
[fn:27] See Why Vim doesn’t need the mouse for more.
[fn:26] See Mastering the Vim language for more.
[fn:25] Usually the q register is used for macros, but this can get
confusing when first starting out. The command would then be qqqqqV~j@qq@q.
Also, this macro can be simplified to ggVG~.
[fn:24] The text foo can be either a literal string or a regex,
such as ^foo.
[fn:23] This is mostly taken from Amix’s Vimrc.
[fn:22] To find a colour scheme you like from the preinstalled colour schemes, go to List installed colorschemes.
[fn:21] Because the file starts with a ., I know, so original.
[fn:20] Locate Home in Windows.
[fn:19] When you see characters, one after another, the keys should also be pressed one after another.
[fn:18] This is where the command mode in VI comes from, see below. Also, see Actually Using Ed for some extreme masochism.
[fn:17] The " is used to retrieve registers, with + referring to
the name of the register to be accessed, (in this case it is the
special “global register”).
[fn:16] Here’s a quick introduction to recursion. Recursion is defining
something in terms of what you are defining. For example, a directory
can contain multiple files and multiple directories. A math example
would be an equation like x = 1 + x, and replacing x on the right with
1 + x giving us x = 1 + 1 + x, and continuing to infinity would give
us x = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + .... A similar expansion can be carried out
on the acronym GNU, left as an exercise for the reader.
[fn:15] Richard Stallman.
[fn:14] GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix”, a recursive acronym.
[fn:13] The command to both run and install it is nvim NOT neovim.
[fn:12] See The Editor Wars.
[fn:11] I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you usually refer to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. (See GNU Linux copypasta.)
[fn:10] The other way would be to run a search and replace, such as
:s/foo/bar/g, which would replace all occurrences of foo with bar.
[fn:9] Regexes, or regular expressions, are a way of doing things like
parsing and substituting in a file. The regex ^hi says to match the
line starting with hi and the regex ^$ says match the empty line
(ie. the line that starts and ends with nothing in between).
[fn:8] This is usually not encouraged, especially at the beginning, since having plugins hinder your ability to understand Vim, and are nice to have and not necessarily mandatory for the functioning of Vim. In fact, for GNU/Linux users, the IDE is the operating system. See Unix as IDE.
[fn:7] So the command will run in the range x,y, and a 'a refers to
the mark a, with the < referring to the first and > referring to the
last selection. So all together it says “run the command from the
beginning of the selection to the end of the selection.”
[fn:6] In VI you will neither see the cursor change nor the
--INSERT-- at the bottom.
[fn:5] NeoVim pronounced “neo-vim”.
[fn:4] Vim pronounced “vim”.
[fn:3] VI pronounced “vee-eye”, also pronounced “vy” but that is an unofficial pronunciation.
[fn:2] For more on how vim works see this awesome answer on StackOverflow Your problem with Vim is that you don’t grok vi and Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?.
[fn:1] Technically, the “ed” and “ex” editors are even older, but are quite cumbersome to use. For example, they require you to print a range of lines to be able to see them.