I’m just about to install a crontab entry, and boom - I end up in the weird default editor. The one I never quite understood.
Usually the new or modified file is saved when you leave vi. However, it is also possible to quit vi without saving the file. Note: The cursor moves to bottom of screen whenever a colon (:) is typed. This type of command is completed by hitting the (or ) key. Save and exit the file in vim editor Now the file got saved with all the lines that we entered in the vim editor. Similarly you can follow the same steps to modify the existing files. Please note that the command:x is also used to write the file and quit the vim editor.
ESC? Nothing happens.
GNU screen clearing on vim,less,etc. Exit, The answer lies in the terminal capabilities of both the 'real' terminal that you are using and the terminal that is presented to applications via screen. Tip 965 Printable Monobook Previous Next created 2005 complexity basic author tlgrok version 6.0 GNU Screen is a terminal multiplexer. The way tag system works in Vim, is that Vim relies on a tag generator to generate a tag file (normally called tags in root directory) that contains a list of definitions. To see where Vim expects to find a tags file, you can run:set tags? Depending on what tags generator you use, the content of your tags file may look different.
CTRL + C? No.
ESC ESC ESC? Nope. I’m stuck.
Not again. With my head down in shame, I’m resorting to opening another session just to killall vim to get on with my day.
Sound familiar? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been there. Until I decided to spend 10 minutes learning the very basics of Vim.
This post is your survival guide to the editor Vim. It’s not advanced, but enough to get you started and hopefully spark your interest in learning more.
Vim is shipped by default with many operating systems (including most Linux distributions and Mac OS X), so I suggest you take a proactive approach to learning it. Just launch a terminal and type ‘vim’ to get started.
With some learning, Vim can be more powerful than many graphical IDEs. And it certainly doesn’t eat hundreds of megs of memory just to view an empty file (looking at you, Eclipse).
The Basics
Some commands in this guide start with a colon: pressing it will display the command prompt where the subsequent command is written.
Commands without a colon are more like hotkeys - they can be used in the Vim default mode (which is the mode Vim starts in).
Commands written in CAPITAL LETTERS are specific keys: for example, ESC means the escape key on your keyboard.
All commands in Vim are case-sensitive.
Exiting Vim
To quit, discarding any changes you might have made:
Memorize: quit dammit!
To quit, saving any changes you’ve made:
Memorize: write to disk and quit
Navigating the editor
To move around the currently open file, use your arrow keys.
To move to line 285:
To search for the word import:
Editing text
To start inserting text on the current cursor location:
Memorize: insert
To start inserting at the end of the current line:
Memorize: Append
To exit insert mode, and return to the default mode:
Selecting text
To start selecting, enter the visual mode:
Memorize: visual
Select text by moving with your arrow keys.
To exit visual mode:
Cut, copy and paste
To copy the current selection into the buffer (think of it as a clipboard):
Memorize: yank
To cut the current selection:
Memorize: delete
To copy the current line into the buffer:
Memorize: yank yank
To copy 3 lines including the current line into the buffer:
To cut the current line and place it into the buffer:
Memorize: delete delete
To cut 5 lines including the current line:
To paste the buffer before the current line:
Note: Uppercase P
To paste the buffer after the current line:
Undo and redo
To undo the last change:
Memorize: uh-oh :)
To redo the last change you just undid:
To see the number of changes:
To undo the last two changes:
The Vim multi-level undo tree is very powerful. Read more about it here.
Opening files
To open the file index.html instead of the current one:
Saving files
To save the file you’re currently editing:
Exit Vim Editor Mac
Memorize: write to disk
To save the file with a different name, here changes.txt (ie. Save As):
Searching and replacing
To search and replace all occurences of a string in the file:
To search and replace, but prompt before replacing:
Memorize: confirm
Syntax highlighting and Indentation
Turn on syntax highlighting:
Enable automatic indentation:
Increase indentation on multiple lines by selecting them in visual mode, and pressing:
Working with multiple files
Tabs
To open server.py in a new tab:
Memorize: tab edit
To move to the next tab on the right:
Memorize: tab next
To move to the previous tab on the left:
Memorize: tab previous
To close a tab, move to it and use :q or :wq as you would normally.
Split view
To open templates/base.html in a vertical split screen:
Memorize: vertical split
To open shared.js in a horizontal split screen:
Memorize: the ‘default’ horizontal split
To move between split screens:
To close a split screen, move to it and use :q or :wq as you would normally.
Configuring Vim: the .vimrc
Many of the commands you use to change how Vim looks and behaves can be made default by placing them in the .vimrc. This is the Vim configuration file, and it lives in your home directory.
For example, placing this in ~/.vimrc will enable syntax highlighting and autoindentation by default:
Get some ideas for creating your dream .vimrc here.
More resources for life with Vim
Did I spark your interest? Great!
Here are some resources for you to continue learning:
- Dalibor Nasevic’s 12 intermediate/advanced Vim tips
- The official Vim wiki’s Best Vim Tips
- Zzapper’s huge list of Vim tips
Releaseworks Academy has a free online training course on Docker & Jenkins best practices: https://www.releaseworksacademy.com/courses/best-practices-docker-jenkins
Vim (Vi IMproved) is an open-source text editor for Unix or Linux systems. It is a powerful and stable tool for editing and writing text, both in the command-line interface and as an independent application in a GUI.
Take the first step in learning Vim with the basic saving commands. Follow this guide and learn how to save a file in Vim / vi and exit the editor.
- Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver
- A user with sudo privileges
- Access to a terminal/command line
- The apt tool, pre-loaded in Ubuntu and other Debian-based distros.
When Vim launches, files are opened in command mode by default. This means that you can move around and edit the file, but cannot insert new text.
All alphanumeric keys in this mode are equal to commands, and pressing them will not display their value on the screen. For example, pressing the letter w will move the cursor one word forward.
To type text, you must be in insert mode. To switch to insert mode, press the i key. Now you can type text into a file.
To switch back to command mode, press the ESC button.
To save a file and exit Vim:
1. Switch to command mode by pressing the ESC key.
2. Press : (colon) to open the prompt bar in the bottom left corner of the window.
3. Type x after the colon and hit Enter. This will save the changes and exit.
Alternatively, a command that will also save a file and exit the text editor is:
In which case the w stands for write (=save) and q stands for quit.
To save a filewithout exiting in Vim:
1. Switch to command mode by pressing the ESC key.
2. Type : (colon). This will open the prompt bar in the bottom left corner of the window.
3. Type w after the colon and hit Enter. This will save in Vim the changes made to the file, without exiting.
You can also rename an existing file by adding the new name after the commands.
In the picture below, we renamed the existing example1.txt into newexample.
To exit Vim without saving changes:
1. Switch to command mode by pressing the ESC key.
2. Press : (colon) to open the prompt bar in the bottom left corner of the window.
3. Type q! after the colon and hit Enter to exit without saving the changes.
This article explained how to save files in Vi / Vim, with multiple command options.
The more comfortable you feel using keyboard shortcuts, the more you will understand why Vim earned its worldwide reputation. Next learn how to copy and paste in Vim!
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