Vim 101: Movement in Command-line Mode

Vim’s command-line mode doesn’t receive much attention, but it’s useful to learn some of the more efficient ways to navigate text when it’s active. Command-line mode is used to enter commands prefixed with a :, search patterns, and filter commands.

Basic movement is performed with the arrow keys — left and right move the cursor one character at a time. Most people struggle when modifying a previously typed command, but there are ways to move around more quickly.

For example, let’s say I want to write a new file, but I’ve accidentally typed in an edit command:

:e ~/Documents/Code/project/file.c

Since the buffer has been edited, an error will be displayed:

E37: No write since last change (add ! to override)

A novice may press the up arrow to get back to the previously typed command, then press the left arrow key until the cursor has moved to the e at the start of the line so it can be changed to w. That feels extremely uncomfortable and is a lot more work than it needs to be.

The more efficient alternative is to press CTRL-B to instantly move to the beginning of the line. Conversely, CTRL-E can be used to move to the end of the line.

As mentioned last week, CTRL-R also works in command-line mode. This can be used to insert the value of a register.

Word movement and various command-line completion options are available, and this is all documented in :help cmdline.

tmux

If these shortcuts don’t seem to work, try the tmux window option: set-window-option -g xterm-keys on with this in your ~/.vimrc:

if &term =~ '^screen'
  " tmux will send xterm-style keys when its xterm-keys option is on
  execute "set =\e[1;*A"
  execute "set =\e[1;*B"
  execute "set =\e[1;*C"
  execute "set =\e[1;*D"
endif