Vim 101: runtimepath

Vim looks for scripts and documentation in various directories, both in your home directory and system-wide. This is controlled by the 'runtimepath' option.

Depending on your system, the 'runtimepath' option will be set to several paths, separated by commas. Typing…

Vim 101: Tags

A big part of editing that often gets overlooked is file navigation. Effective file navigation is a skill that can help improve productivity, but also aids visualisation of a project.

Vim’s bare interface belies a wealth of hidden functionality that can help you dart around a…

Vim 101: Insert Mode Shortcuts

When editing a file in Insert mode, it sometimes feels restrictive in terms of editing shortcuts. However, many shortcuts used elsewhere in Unix and other text editors are available. For example, CTRL-w (:help i_CTRL-W) will delete the word before the cursor, and CTRL-u…

Vim 101: Jumping Between Files

If you were born and raised on GUI editors, switching to the console and Vim feels like it lacks some of the speed of file navigation. Vim has a lot of different ways to quickly flip between files, and one that I like is the gf command (:help gf).

Vim 101: Pasting Into Command-line Mode

There are times when you’re tempted to lift your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, idly wondering if there’s a better way. One such case is taking text from a buffer and placing it into Command-line mode. For example, performing text substitution with %s…