Practical Vim, Second Edition

by Drew Neil

TOC | What readers are saying about Practical Vim 👉

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword to the First Edition

Read Me

• How This Book Is Structured
• A Note on the Examples
• Learn to Touch Type, Then Learn Vim

Read the Forgotten Manual

• Get to Know Vim’s Built-in Documentation
• Notation for Simulating Vim on the Page
• Downloading the Examples
• Use Vim’s Factory Settings
• On the Role of Vim Script
• On Vim Versions

1. The Vim Way

Tip 1. Meet the Dot Command

Tip 2. Don’t Repeat Yourself

Tip 3. Take One Step Back, Then Three Forward

Tip 4. Act, Repeat, Reverse

Tip 5. Find and Replace by Hand

Tip 6. Meet the Dot Formula

• Part I. Modes

2. Normal Mode

Tip 7. Pause with Your Brush Off the Page

Tip 8. Chunk Your Undos

Tip 9. Compose Repeatable Changes

Tip 10. Use Counts to Do Simple Arithmetic

Tip 11. Don’t Count If You Can Repeat

Tip 12. Combine and Conquer

3. Insert Mode

Tip 13. Make Corrections Instantly from Insert Mode

Tip 14. Get Back to Normal Mode

Tip 15. Paste from a Register Without Leaving Insert Mode

Tip 16. Do Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations in Place

Tip 17. Insert Unusual Characters by Character Code

Tip 18. Insert Unusual Characters by Digraph

Tip 19. Overwrite Existing Text with Replace Mode

4. Visual Mode

Tip 20. Grok Visual Mode

Tip 21. Define a Visual Selection

Tip 22. Repeat Line-Wise Visual Commands

Tip 23. Prefer Operators to Visual Commands Where Possible