Essential Vim | Hacker News Reader

Essential Vim

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53 pointsmace23 comments

It would be nice if that table included the full versions of some of the commands. For example:

  :sp is equivalent to :split
  :vs is equivalent to :vsplit

For me at least, the abbreviated commands become more intuitive if I know exactly what's being abbreviated (most of the time I type :vsplit instead of :vs anyway).

I like to know the long version before I start abbreviating things too.

Poor guy uses the Insert key to get into insert mode. My wrists already feel pain just from reading that.

A lot of his keybindings are are similarly nonstandard.

Thanks for the heads up. I was already bookmarking it to practice.

Same for Esc to leave it, C-[ works much better.

Or C-c.

Also pretty popular to remap capslock to esc, I tried it but never got used to it.

I have kj mapped to Esc here. Right on the home row, and almost never comes up in the english language.

Can you explain how to do this?

imap kj <Esc>

A lot of folks map jj for ESC and uu for underscore. However, what this means is that on typing j or u, vim waits for the next keystroke before displaying or doing anything.

I can't remember where this used to hit me. Perhaps some abbreviation with u ?? I notice I've commented off "uu" but still have "jj".

I still go up and slam the ESC key after 20 years of vimming. How do i get into the habit of C-[ ?

The habit is only formed by training. When I first started learning Vim I used the arrow keys for navigation. I recently null'd them out so the don't work. I couldn't do a damn thing. I still use the arrow keys.

thanks

Here's a vote for the capslock/esc remap. I've got it as a global remap and have gotten used to it in other apps as well (canceling a dialog, for instance). Couldn't live without it.

I have capslock remapped globally to control on the OS level.

c-[ is Escape (displayed as ^[ in vim). Also, it isn't obvious for beginners where c-[ is located on non-English keyboards. And it's two keys to press. I'd still prefer Esc. The fact that the key is usally located outside of the main typing area reflect its meaning. Get me out of here.

I almost never use i to get into insert mode. I use a or o almost exclusively.

Vim is awesome. NERDTree is a must for any developer.

a good collection of vim plugins and configs (with an awesome README) can be found here: http://github.com/astrails/dotvim

> If you are transitioning from windows, then in order of preference you will probably want to use, evim, gvim, vim.

What advantage does console vim have over gvim

Plays nice with screen and tmux.

Probably "regular" vim goes last in that list because the author assumes Windows users are unfamiliar with the terminal. But it can be easier to open vim in the console for something quick or if you're doing something over the network (say, ssh). For example, I use the terminal often for quick commit messages or short edits and consistently for Mutt. Regular vim is easier with Mutt rather than kicking open G/Mvim and then returning to the terminal to send the mail. (You can automate the right return to focus for the terminal when you close G/Mvim, but it's still a bit jarring.) For very long edits on a good connection, I will open sshfs and use M/Gvim, but in general ssh + vim is simpler.

Now, someone give me the equivalent 'Essential Emacs' link please! =)

Please go to the catonmat site. It has cheat sheets for vim, emacs and a bunch of other useful things.

There's also a ruby gem named "cheat" which has cheatsheets for 100's of commands and programs. you can access them on your command-line.

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