An introduction to Vim

1. The Vim Survival
Guide
Ben McCormick
Windsor Circle
Twitter: @ben336
Blog: http://benmccormick.org

2. Who Am I?
• Software Engineer at Windsor Circle
• Vim user since 2013
• Wrote a series of blogs on Vim in 2014

3. So What Is Vim?
• Open Source Text editor created in 1991, based
on an earlier text editor (vi) created in 1976 for
UNIX
• Terminal based, but can be used in UI
• Some variation on it or vi is shipped in ~all *nix
operating systems
• Charityware

4. So What Is Vim?

5. What To Expect
• Intro: Context + History
• Part 1: Surviving Vim
• Why?
• How?
• Part 2: Using Vim
• Why?
• How?

6. Vim’s Reputation

7. Vim’s Reputation

8. Vim’s Reputation

9. Vim’s Reputation

10. Vim’s Reputation

11. Vim’s Reputation

12. Vim’s Reputation

13. Vim’s Reputation: Fair
Criticism
• Tough initial learning curve
• Truly bad defaults (Bad beginner UX)
• Alien for most modern users

14. Vim’s Reputation: Myths
• Too old to be relevant
• Not really efficient
• Tough learning curve lasts forever
• Bad (power user) UX

15. Editor Wars
• Vi vs Emacs
• Many more options now
• But Vim stands apart

16. vi IDEs

17. Vim has different ideas about:
• Shortcut keys
• Copy and paste
• File system integration / management
• Configuration
• Keyboard vs mouse use
• Naming conventions

18. Why use Vim at all?
• Ubiquitous
• Many other editors don't run in a terminal

19. Surviving Vim: Minimal
knowledge
• Vim is a modal editor
• Vim has a visual editor and a command prompt
(ex) editor

20. What is a modal editor?
• Commands are contextual
• Depending on what mode you’re in different
keystrokes do different things

21. What is a modal editor?
In this mode, typing `dd`
deletes the current line
In this mode, typing `dd`
writes out 2 ds
at the start of the line

22. Vim Modes
• Normal Mode
• Insert Mode
• Visual Mode
• Others (less important)

23. Normal mode
• “Normal”
• default when Vim is opened
• Keystrokes are commands
• From other modes use `esc` to switch to normal
mode

24. Insert Mode
• More normal for modern users
• Keystrokes insert text
• commands are possible with key combinations
• From normal mode use `i` to switch to insert
mode

25. Visual Mode
• For Highlighting/text selection
• keystrokes are commands
• From normal mode use `v` to switch to visual
mode

26. Ex Commands / Command
Prompt
• From normal mode `:` to
trigger ex commands
• File menu equivalent
• Used for opening, closing files
and the editor, find and
replace, command line
integration, more

27. Starting Vim

28. Opening Files
• :e/:edit to open a new file
• :sp/:split or :vs/:vsplit for opening in a split

29. Opening Files

30. Closing Files
• :w/:write to save
• :q/:quit or :qall/:quitall to quit
• :wq to save and quit
• :q! to force quit with unsaved changes

31. Closing Files

32. Navigating Files
• Encourages use of hjkl instead of the arrow keys
• Arrow keys still work
• Mouse might or might not work depending on
your environment

33. Navigating Files
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QWERTY-home-keys-position.svg

34. Navigating Files

35. Vim Survival
• Remember that Vim is modal
• Insert mode is “normal editing” mode
• Normal mode is “command mode”
• :w to save, :q to quit, :q! to quit decisively :)

36. Resources
• vimtutor
• vim-adventures.com

37. Using Vim for real

38. Why use Vim over
[Sublime/Atom/VS/IntelliJ/XCode/etc]
?
• A beautiful editing language
• Command Line living
• Top notch flexibility and configurability

39. Caveats
• Bad defaults
• Learning Curve
• Low UI polish
• Plugin Development

40. Vim as language
• Motions: hjkl, w, b
• Verbs: d, v

41. Vim as language
• dh -> delete one character to the left
• dl -> delete one character to the right
• dw -> delete to the start of the next word
• db -> delete back to the start of the current word

42. Vim as language

43. Vim as language
• More Motions: G/gg, f<char>
• More Verbs: gU, c

44. Vim as language
• dG - delete everything to the end of the file
• gUf. - all-caps to the next `.`
• cw - delete to the start of the next word, and then
enter insert mode to replace the text

45. Vim as language
• Text objects: iw, i(
• Double verbs apply to the whole line

46. Vim as language
• di( - delete everything inside the current parens
• gUiw - all-caps the current word
• dd - delete the current line
• cc -delete the current line and move to insert
mode

47. Vim as language

48. Vim as language
• verb + motion/text object -> action
• Each new command you learn works with
existing concepts
• Everyone has their own “accent”

49. Vim as Language: Repetition
• dot command `.` repeats the previous action
(combo of verb and motion/text object)
• You can use plain motions in between

50. Vim as Language: Repetition
• dw to delete to the start of the next word
• `..` to repeat 2 more times

51. Vim as Language: Repetition

52. Vim as a modern editor
• Fixing bad defaults comes through configuration
in ~/.vimrc file
• Control look and feel, custom commands
• https://dotfiles.github.io/

53. Vim as a modern editor

54. Vim as a modern editor
• Feature parity with other editors comes through
plugins
• http://vimawesome.com/
• Many plugin managers with Github compatibility
(pathogen, vundle, vim-plug)
• Plugins are ~100% open source, you can make your
own!

55. Vim as a modern editor

56. Vim as a modern editor

57. Vim as a modern editor

58. Vim as a modern editor
• Fuzzy-finder
• Linting
• Git Integration
• AutoComplete
• Status bars
• Command line integration

59. Resources
• Practical Vim by Drew Neil
• vimcasts.org
• http://benmccormick.org/learning-vim-in-2014/

60. Vim Language Elsewhere
• Neovim: a rethinking of Vim
• Vim modes: Sublime, Atom, IntelliJ, Visual Studio
• Command Line: vim modes for bash, zsh, fish
• Elsewhere: Gmail has vi-inspired shortcuts

61. Questions?

62. Ben McCormick
Windsor Circle
Twitter: @ben336
Blog: http://benmccormick.org