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Comment by xutopia | Hacker News Reader

I guess I have to give it a shot again. I keep on getting frustrated with VIM. Perhaps this is the proper way to learn it.

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Make sure you get function completion, etc for your language integrated in. I know that function is one of the one's non-vimmers seem to miss most when coding, and I'd miss it too, if it wasn't one of the first things I setup for every language.

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1879

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Omni_completion

C++ http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/C%2B%2B_code_completion

Python http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1542

Objc http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2674

Most people who use vim don't use it as an exercise in minimalism we're often caricatured as constantly undergoing. I mean, we don't chock it up to Visual Studio/Emacs level of plug-ins, but we definitely use some in our day to day on average.

Most people who use vim don't use it as an exercise in minimalism we're often caricatured as constantly undergoing.

How do you know that?

I talk with other vim users?

Even in unix shops, lots of the people end up trying to use stuff like kDevelop and stuff. Those of us who instead vim, we talk.

I use vim in a minimalistic fashion; I've never talked to you about it. My guess is that you haven't talked to other than a minuscule portion of vim-using developers around the globe, and are presenting your prejudice as fact.

Also, a gem that most people don't seem to know about: a standard vim install comes with a program called `vimtutor`. Running it will put you inside vim with an excellent first tutorial, suitable for beginner vimmers.

Good luck! The muscle memory you learn now will pay off in the future! :D

Yes, vi related muscle memory is particularly useful when using non-vi text entry.:wq

Grr. Why can't ^W be something less harmful in most programs?

What programs is it not backward-kill-word in?

In vim it is the first part of a sequence for manipulating windows. This mindset can conflict with e.g. firefox, in which ctrl-w closes a window. (particularly if there are multiple firefoxes/tabs open)

Edit: That should be close tab, not close window, c-shift-w is window.

Ah. In Emacs, bash, and conkeror, it does something useful.

(I've never really understood why there are keyboard shortcuts for things like "quit program" and "print". How often, if ever, do you want to do those things? Do they really need to be one keystroke away!?)

Thats a pretty inflammatory statement... "In one program and a couple that emulate it...".

How is it not useful to have a keyboard shortcut to change focus between windows? Windows in vim refer to what I believe are called "splits" in emacs. The vim c-w stuff is analogous to c-x stuff in emacs.

As for close tab shortcuts in firefox -- I use it all the time. Standard work flow for me includes c-t, google.com, <misspelled word>, c-w, <correct spelling from "did you mean">.

> Standard work flow for me includes c-t, google.com, <misspelled word>, c-w, <correct spelling from "did you mean">.

This might be quicker: c-k, <misspelled word>, alt-enter, c-w

alt-enter opens a new tab with the search.

You never close browser tabs?

firefox, in which ctrl-w closes...

It's very useful in situations like this to know that Ctrl-Shift-T reopens the last closed tab, and you can press it repeatedly to continue opening less-recently closed tabs.

Yeah, but in Pidgin you just disconnected. And told your buddy/chat room that you did.

Windows programs, it's often kill MDI child window (or these days, tab).

In Windows, KDE and Gnome it almost universally closes a window. By default, anyway.

I can tell Vim isn't user friendly because :Q isn't an alias for :q by default. :/

One of my co-workers has aliases for typos of common unix commands. (e.g. 'alias mroe=more' and 'alias moer=more' etc)

That is one reason I like Zsh. It can figure out typos most often and prompts you. For example:

  > sl
  zsh: correct 'sl' to 'ls' [nyae]?

(edit: formatting)

Ugh. I keep looking for a way to turn this "feature" off. The fraction of a second it would take me to recognize and correct my mistake is far less frustrating and time-consuming than having to parse the message and select an option.

Of the hundreds of times this feature has popped up, I believe I've actually hit "y" twice.

To me, nethack was useful for hjkl...

Indeed, when I had to make my personal 'vi or emacs' choice back in the day, I chose vi because I played a lot of nethack.

[code folding section deleted, I stand corrected]

Vim's indentation changes still require a mode change three obscure keys and an enter, and vim's discoverability still sucks.

What do you mean "yet"?

vim has had code folding for years:

  :help fold.txt

If you want to indent code, < and > are your friends. (Really? Indenting code with search/replace? What are we, barbarians?)

Depending on the area you want to indent, you can use visual mode with % to select the block and then >> it over, or, for more specific regions, use visual block mode with ctrl-V to highlight the first column of the text you want to indent, hit I, indent the line by hitting space, and hit escape. When you move the cursor the other lines will indent.

At least for curly bracket languages. >iB indents the block <iB deindents dunno which languages it works for otherwise

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Indenting

">" is the indent command. Repeat it ">>" to indent the current line. Use any other vim ranging construct (e.g. ">2j") to indent wider ranges--i.e. the current line plus two lines below.

"=" is the autoindent command. Vim recognizes many languages and you can give it plugins to understand more. Use "==" to autoindent the current line. My personal favorite, "gg=G", jumps to the top of the document and autoindents the entire thing. One time at work I was gently reminded how many spaces I was supposed to indent per the company's coding standard. I quickly set the relevant editor parameters and with four keystrokes my code was compliant.

I think there's a code-folding ability but I've never used it.

Indenting? Heck yes. '=' will indent for you. You just have to give it a movement. =j means 'indent this line and the next' =% means 'indent to the matching brace' =/foo mean 'indent to the next occurrence of foo' 1G=G means 'go to the first line and indent until the last one' If you want specific rules for indenting file types, you can put stuff in your .vim/indent/ folder to define them

Have you ever tried reading the manual? Seriously, the level of the documentation is pretty good for a free piece of software.

Edit: actually, its pretty good for any piece of software.

The problem comes when you don't know what the topic you're looking for is called in vim. I've only had that problem once or twice over the years, but it can be frustrating (esp. w/ no Internet connection).

I agree. Fortunately however, :he has tab completion, which certainly reduces such. Also :he index is nice. And for those times with internet, #vim on freenode usually knows the correct :he keyword in seconds.

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