Vim is a text editor which is very powerful and has its own advantages. Vim stands for Vi IMproved. It is an enhanced version of the original vi editor that comes with UNIX. It can be used to edit all kinds of plain text. It is especially useful for editing programs.
Vim was made available in 1991 and is a free, open source software. The programs you write are often called “commands”. You tell Vim what to do by typing commands. Most commands in Vim are prefixed by pressing the Esc key once, otherwise these keys would start typing in insert mode.
This blog will give you a basic understanding of Vim and help you to get started using it as well as teach you some tips and tricks which you can use to become more efficient with your coding practices.
Vim is one of the most popular text editors among programmers and it has been around for quite some time now! So why use it? Here are the top 3 reasons why:
Fast – One of the most important reason why people use Vim is because it’s fast! Using Vim’s keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly complete editing tasks without having to remove your hands from the keyboard or switch your focus from the screen. This makes it easier to work on large
Vim: A text editor for programmers
What is Vim? Vim is a free and open source text editor that functions much like other text editors, such as Sublime and Notepad++. The difference is that Vim has a keyboard-only approach to editing text. As you start using Vim, you’ll notice that it takes a while to get started. But once you master some basic skills, you’ll be able to edit any kind of text without needing your mouse!
Why should I learn Vim? Learning Vim opens up your world to a whole new way of thinking about computers and text editing. When you are able to use Vim, you will be able to edit any kind of file without needing to open an application such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. This can save time when editing documents and emails! Plus, learning this skill will allow you “show off” in front of your friends (joke intended).
Vim: The basics
Before we dive into the world of keyboard shortcuts and editing techniques, let’s first get familiar with how we navigate within Vim. open up your terminal and type vim . This command should open up a new window inside your terminal which looks something like this:
. I’ll try to make this as simple as possible, with detailed explanation of each and every command.
Getting Started:
If you are on Linux or Mac, VIM must be installed in your system, so open up the terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+t and go ahead and type vim. You’ll see something like this:
Now lets start off with some basic commands.
The Command Mode:
First of all, what is command mode? In VIM there are three modes which we will discuss later but right now let’s just focus on the command mode. The command mode helps us to use various commands in VIM like saving our file, closing a file and a lot more! The command mode is indicated by –INSERT– at the bottom left corner of the screen. This can be seen when you open up a file in VIM and it looks something like this:
This means that currently we are in insert mode, so to get into command mode press esc key on your keyboard. You’ll
VIM is a text editor that’s really worth to learn. The reason why it is so popular among programmers is because of its keyboard shortcuts. One great advantage about knowing VIM’s shortcuts is that you don’t have to take your hand off the keyboard every time you want to do something.
VIM is all about text insertion and manipulation. You can think of it as a word processor with powerful text editing abilities. The first thing we need to know when getting started with VIM is how to get into Insert Mode.
Insert Mode, on the other hand, lets us type into the file we are editing just as easily as typing in a text document on any other word processor or text editor. To enter Insert Mode, all you need to do is press “i” on your keyboard while in Normal Mode, and then begin typing away!
Once you start inserting and deleting characters, words, lines, or even whole paragraphs, you may find yourself wanting to undo or redo your actions. This can be done easily by using the “u” and “ctrl + r” keys respectively while in Normal Mode.
The first command that comes in handy once we have entered Insert Mode is the ability to
vim is a text editor that is upwards compatible to Vi. It can be used to edit all kinds of plain text. It is especially useful for editing programs.
There are a lot of enhancements above Vi: multi level undo, multiple windows and buffers, syntax highlighting, command line history, on-line help, filename completion, block operations, etc. See “:help vi_diff.txt” for the details. Vim is not an editor designed to hold its users’ hands. It is a tool, the use of which must be learned.
Vim is a famous text editor based off of Bill Joy’s Vi text editor for Unix. Vim is based on the vi editor common to Unix-like systems and is designed for use both from a command line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface.
Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor ‘Vi’, with a more complete feature set. It’s useful whether you’re already using vi or using a different editor.
It has these features:
1) All the commands can be given with the keyboard. This has the advantage that your fingers do not have to leave the keyboard, so you can type commands faster. Also, if you do not like typing or are unable to use your mouse, you can still work effectively with Vim. The mouse can be used, but only to set the text-cursor position and make selections while in Visual mode.
2) Every command can be repeated any number of times by entering a number before it. In this way, complex changes can be made very easily.
3) A count can be given before most commands that take motion commands as arguments. This will repeat that command for as many times as specified by the count. (For
Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor ‘Vi’, with a more complete feature set. Vim has a scripting language that allows for plugin like extensions to enable IDE behavior, syntax highlighting, colorization as well as other advanced features. Vim supports multiple file types and has some features, like syntax highlighting, that are language specific.
Vim is designed for use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface. Vim is free and open source software and is released under a license that includes some charityware clauses, encouraging users who enjoy the software to consider donating to children in Uganda. The license is compatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Vim was originally released by Bram Moolenaar in 1991 for the Amiga computer, reporting that he had been thinking about what he wanted in a text editor for about ten years. Vim was based on Stevie, an editor Bram had available on the Amiga and which is also inspired by vi (which Bram later said stands for “vi improved”). Vi generally works within an operating system environment called a “shell” or command line interpreter (CLI), allowing the user to type commands to tell the computer what