Introduction to Vim — Part 1

Get to know why people choose this text editor

Vim is a modal text editor based on the vi editor written in the 1970s for a version of UNIX.

It’s called a modal text editor because Vim has multiple modes that you can use, those being Insert Mode, Command Mode, and Last-Line Mode.

We’ll go into more detail about each one later in the article.

What makes Vim special is the ability to do everything from your keyboard. You never have to touch your mouse when editing a file inside Vim. This is done mostly via the vast number of commands available to you in order to mimic traditional mouse movements.

Command Mode

Besides being the default mode when editing a file using Vim, it’s also the most powerful one. It allows you to move around using keybindings, and common actions such as deleting a line or a word.

The fundamental movement commands you can master in order to feel more confident when using Vim are the following:

• h — move to the left by one character
• j — move down one line