valibuk.net

Vim is my favourite editor. I search for tips from time to time – and there are still nice surprises. After a few years of using it, it is high time to write down my own list of useful tips :)

Here is it:

• delete rest of line – to delete the rest of the current line press Shift-D (in the command mode).
• repeat last command – to repeat the last command, press . (dot) (of course, in the command mode).
• completion – saves typing and time esp. for longer words. Press Ctrl-N (in the edit mode) to get a word or a list of words that have the same prefix as the word on the cursor position.
• path completion – great for bash scripts, images or CSS in HTML or Ant scripts. Ctrl-X-F (press and hold Ctrl, press X, release it and press F) (in the edit mode) shows a list of directories and files in the actual directory or will complete a directory or file name if the already typed prefix is unique. Of course, it works with absolute and relative paths too.
• bookmark – to store/mark the actual position press M (lower case m) and then any letter key(in the command mode) as the mark of this bookmark, e.g. M A for bookmark a or M Q for bookmark q. To go to the bookmarked position, press ` and the stored mark, e.g. ` A will move you to the bookmark a.
  If you need more a lot of bookmarks, you may use lower and upper case marks, i.e. M A and ` A for mark a, but M Shift-A and ` Shift-A for mark A.
• comment out multiple lines – press Ctrl-V (the visual block) in the command mode and select more lines, then press Shift-I to start the edit mode, insert one or more characters, e.g. press # to comment out more lines in Ruby, and then press Esc (on some systems twice). (Motivated by Mark’s blog.)
  To uncomment lines, press Ctrl-V, select the block and press d to delete it.