The Ultimate Text Editor
Vi is a Unix texteditor from ancient times.
Vim 5 is a recent improvement available for Windows and Dos.
Vim can do almost anything and is highly flexible.
It only has two drawbacks:
1. You will have to learn how to use it.
2. Once you've learned you may tend to
use this in other programs, resulting
in odd things getting typed where you
least expect...
The first one is no problem; Vim is easily learned.
The second, on the other hand, is chronical. Anyone out there who
has ever tried an "exit and save" from MSWord or Netscape by
pressing ':wq'? Quite a few I geuss, hehe!
Here is a list of some of the features of Vim 5.
How do I learn to use it, then?
Well, learning to use Vim is easy once you realize that it uses two
'modes', the command mode and the editing mode. You start
in command mode, and to begin writing text you press 'i'.
Vim then writes INSERT at the bottom of the screen.
If you wish to go back to command mode you simply press <Esc>,
that is the button on your keyboard with the text "Esc".
To exit from Vim you would write :wq, which saves your text and quits.
If you just type :w Vim only saves (write), and if you only type :q it
only exits (quit). If you have made any changes to the text which
has not been saved, Vim will complain... typing :q! will force Vim to
quit anyhow.
Some useful commands to get you started...
| i | Insert Mode |
| <Esc> | Back to command mode |
| :w | Save text (write) |
| :q | Quit from Vim |
| :q! | Quit and abandon changes |
| :wq | Save and Quit |
| :e! | Load file again (discarding changes) |
| dd | Delete current line |
| dw | Delete current word |
| cw | Change current word |
| x | Delete current character |
| G | Goto last line |
| gg | Goto first line |
| [n] G | Goto line [n] |
| [n] dd | Delete [n] lines |
| [n] x | Delete [n] characters |
| [n] + | Go [n] lines down |
| [n] - | Go [n] lines up |
| [n] yy | Yank (copy) [n] lines |
| [n] p | Paste text [n] times |
| u | Undo |
| [n] u | Undo [n] last changes |
These are just a tiny little taste of Vim's commands. As you can see, there are
two types of commands, the ones with an colon in front, and those without.
On those without you can enter a number to repeat the command. For
instance the command 'dd' which deletes the line which the cursor is on; if
you would like to erase 4 lines of text you would type '4dd'.
Normally you will not see what mode you are in, but if you type
':set showmode' you will see what mode you're in at the bottom of the screen.
To remove this type ':set noshowmode'.
This is an example of one of the options you can set in Vim, but
the change is not permanent, the change will be lost the next
time you start Vim.
To make a change permanent you enter the commands for the options you
want in a textfile called vimrc. There are more than a hundred options to
set if you wish! To see all options you simply write ':set all'.
Vim has a huge built-in help facility. You type ':help' to get it, and if you want
help on a certain topic you type ':help topic'. Vim also has a 30-minutes
built-in tutorial.
Also, be sure to get the Vim 5 Reference Guide by Oleg Raisky.
This is just the absolute basics to get you started and to get you a taste of
what its like to use Vim. You will find more on these pages below...
Vim on the net
The Vim Homepage
The Vi Lovers Homepage
Vi Pages
Back home...
