Cool Vim stuff

Vim is a text editor that makes navigating and editing code easy and fast. Over the years it garnered a cult-like following and a very lively ecosystem online. A downside of such a big ecosystem is that there is not one central place to find all the information. What I offer here is many beginner and advanced Vim motions in one place.

In the first part you find many straight forward Vim tips. The last two parts are very helpful tips I learned from ThePrimeagen, a Vim enthusiast who is very popular on YouTube and Twitch.

What can you do with the resources below? Copy it all and use it as cheat sheet, pick from it what you find interesting or do whatever else you want to do with it.

This is list is not complete! This is just a lot of the stuff that I like and use often.

NAVIGATING

4j : move 4 lines down
4k : move 4 lines up
4w : move 4 words forward
4b : move 4 words backward

0 : jump to beginning of the line
$ : jump to the end of the line

f" : move cursor forward to "
% : when on a brace, % jumps to matching closing brace; do % again to jump back to opening brace

Ctrl + f : move down a page
Ctrl + b : move up a page
Ctrl + o : jump previous (older) location
Ctrl + i : jump to next (newer) location

g; : jump to last change
g, : jump to next change
gg : jump to top of document
G : jump to end of file

* : find next occurrence
# : find previous occurence

Search for patterns:
press /
enter pattern
press Enter to search
n : find next occurrence
N : find previous occurrence


EDITING

y : copy
P : paste (uppercase)
d : delete
c : cuts line
C : cuts line until cursor

dw : delete a word
d6w : delete 6 words
dt> : delete till >
di] : delete everything inside [ ]
ci} : change everything inside { ]
dd : delete whole line
4dd : delete 4 lines
dip : delete everything in paragraph
dap : delete around paragraph

s : delete one character or use cl or xi if s is used by Leap plugin in Neovim

:g/pattern/d - remove lines matching the pattern
:g!/pattern/d - remove lines that do NOT match the pattern
:v/pattern/d – Also removes lines that do not match the pattern

cw : change until end of current word
caw : change around the word (incl. whitespace)
ciw : change inside the word (excl. whitespace)
ciW : change the whole "thing" you're in
c2w : change next two words

vaw : visually select word

guiw : make current word lower case

yy : copy a line
3yy : copy 3 lines
cc : change a line ( change is delete and go in insert mode )
cap : change a paragraph
. : repeat last command
f'ci'hello : _find the next ' then change everything inside ' for hello

ddp : moves line below
ddkP : moves line above

r : replaces single character
R : replaces more than one character

5i lorem : inserts lorem 5 times
10gs : puts (neo)vim to sleep for 10 seconds

search with /
/word.*

Commenting, commentary.vim (github.com/tpope/vim-commentary)
gcc : comment out a line
gcap : comment out a paragraph

Multiple Line Editing (native vim)
Ctrl + v : visual block mode
*select multiple lines*
I : insert mode
*add word or edit whatever*
Esc : leave insert mode, realizes changes

https://vimforvscode.com/change-multiple-pieces-text
viw : select word
Alt + n : select next occurrence
Esc : unselect words, leaves cursors at each words
b : go to beginning of word
cw : change word

Multiple Cursors via plugin (github.com/mg979/vim-visual-multi)
Ctrl + x : start multicursor and directly select all matches

This is a comment by ThePrimeagen on Reddit on how to get quicker at navigating with Vim:

Faster Navigation
from the Primeagen on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/m330z4/getting_faster/

Insert Modes:

Learn to take advantage of o and O, A. They are awesome.

yanks/highlights/dels:

ciw, yiw, viw are amazing, but if you need to do the _whole_ word, try yiW. I do this a bunch. Imagine the following: Namespace::Class foo and you want to copy Namespace::Class, you could put your cursor at N and yf<space> but yiW also works (you don't have to be at the beginning of the word) (for this example I don't provide much benefit, but its incredible once you get it)

Vertical Navigation

get use to page ups and downs. I have been resistant for 9.5 years on those, and only since I adopted tmux (traveling the output) have I finally leaned in. ctrl+d/u is exceptionally awesome and they dont alter jump list.

Jump List

Take advantage of the jump list. Example:

I need to add an include/import. I use ggOimport foo from "bar";<esc><ctrl+o>. This will go to the top, insert mode top line, adds import, leaves insert, and travels back from whence I came (like the ring).

File Navigation

Fuzzy finders are great when you don't have an instant jump to the file. Use them. Don't use nerdtree / netrw / dirvish / etc etc etc etc etc.

QuickFix / LocalFix

Learn quick fix menus and their navigation. I have quit using <Ctrl-j/k> and <leader>j/k for window nav and instead use C-j/k for quickfix navigation and <leader>j/k for localfix navigation. cdo or bust

Sorry for the brain dump, but its been an incredible journey for me and I absolutely love to share some wisdom.

Ultimately, how I envision vim should work and why it works so well is that you "think" of what you want and there are keystrokes to accomplish it. If you find yourself just aimlessly scrolling, stop, why should be a big question on your mind.

Lastly, I hate to fearlessly shill my own product, but if you are interested in an alternative to file navigation and use neovim, I would be glad to share my experimental plugin.

Life is to short to proof read

LEARN RELATIVE JUMPS.

The "Fighting one-eyed Kirby" is what ThePrimeagen calls a Vim regex capture group to replace text in the buffer.

Primeagen's "fighting one-eyed Kirby"
video: https://www.twitch.tv/theprimeagen/clip/GentleBumblingLadiesAMPEnergyCherry-MlGwozjH5QU2gV8t

Further explanation: https://waylonwalker.com/thoughts-200/

The following explanation is from this comment on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theprimeagen/comments/12v4q06/can_anyone_explain_how_to_do_the_fighting_one/

foo
bar
baz

:%s/\(.*\)/bar\1/g

barfoo
barbar
barbaz

Whats going on here....

%s replace all lines

/ start pattern

\(.*\) the \ are escapes, so the regex is (.*) this basically captures everything on the line and places it into capture group 1

/ substitute section

bar\1 bar is just text, the \ is an escape and the 1 is the previous capture group.

/g finish the set