Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi? - The Diigo Meta page

• 01 Jun 20
  

  Alexandre Chautemps

  vi tuto

• 02 Dec 18
  

  Yes, even if you can't believe it, there are a lot fans of the 30-years-old vi editor (or its more recent, just-15-years-old, best clone & great improvement, vim). via Pocket

  bitly Pocket ifttt newsblur

• 15 Jun 17
  

  pengwei
  • Commands in vi/vim are meant to be combined - 'd' means delete, 'e'  means 'move to end of word', then 'de' is a complete command that deletes to  the end of the current word (something like Ctrl-Shift-Right, Left, Del in most  regular editors).
  • One good benefit of this is that the '.' command repeats the last  complete, combined editing command (not movement commands).  After doing 'dw', '.' will act as a command to delete to the beginning of the  next word. You can move around at will with all the powerful navigation  commands, and press '.' at will to delete to the next word quickly. This turns  out to be incredibly powerful.
  • What this means is that if you type 'iHello<Esc>', which enters the  text 'Hello' at the cursor's position, what now '.' does is "Type 'Hello' at  the cursor's position".
  • But it's better than this. 'A' goes to the end of the current line  and enters insert mode there. So, after completing the insert by pressing  <Esc>, you can press '.' anywhere to go to the end of the line and do the  same thing.
  • S' to delete to the end of line, etc... all of them entering insert mode  afterwards) so
  • And now you have to repeat this with the other two. How do you do it? Easy:  first, press 'j' to move the cursor down. And then, press '.' to repeat the last  full editing command (the 'A' command with the backspace and the inserted text).  If you do 'j.j.', that is, twice, you get the following:
  • editing operations being pretty repetitive. But think about it, how much of  your daily editing is repetitive? Yeah, I thought so.
  • right. Not with vi or vim. The '%' motion  moves from a parenthesis (or similar grouping character) to its matching one -  but if you're not positioned at one of these special characters, it will scan  chara

  6 more annotations...

• 29 May 17
  

  Bruno Melo

  unix linux tutorial

• 21 Nov 16
  

  Geisa Santos
• 19 Jul 16
  

  Alexander Eberts

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• 03 Jul 16
  

  hiredblade
• 01 May 16
  

  Pramod Nanadikar

  Another good article on vi...

  vi vim

• 27 Apr 16
  

  arraiscastro

  linux vi vim

• 14 Apr 16
  

  Gronghon G.
• 24 Mar 16
  

  ganrqunx

  vim

• 15 Jul 15
  

  Konstantinos
• 12 Jul 15
  

  Perry Branch

  • the main power of vi, and the power that you can't live without  after you've got used to it, is the power of the basic editing model:

      
     
    • One- or two-key motions to move directly anywhere on the line, or on the  screen
      
    • Operators such as 'd' or 'c' that can be combined with any motion to  directly modify some text and maybe enter insert mode, and being able to repeat  it all as many times as you wish with '.'
      
    • Anything can be done without moving your hands away from home row! No more  suffering when editing on a laptop with a braindead keyboard layout (most of  them)
• 26 Mar 15
  

  Eduardo Duenez

  vim tutorial editor

  • laptop with a braindead keyboard layout (most of  them)
• 04 Jan 15
  

  albertnetymk

  advocate vim

• 24 Sep 14
  

  secretlm
  • normal mode, and only
• 04 Aug 14
  

  Al Ber

  vi

• 29 Jul 14
  

  Stefan Thull

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• 22 Jun 14
  

  Geoffrey Van Wyk

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• 27 May 14
  

  Franco Biasin

  Some VIM tips!

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• 21 May 14
  

  jmolino

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• 06 May 14
  

  loveforgeter
• 07 Apr 14
  

  zzanghwi
  • You are always in  normal mode, and only enter insert mode for short bursts of typing  text, after which you press <Esc> to go to normal mode.
  • But you never think about insert mode  as a mode where you stay.
  • '.' command repeats the last  complete, combined editing command

  • Example #1: the wonderful dot command

      
  • press '.' to repeat the last  full editing command

  • Misconception #2: it's not all about regular expressions

      
  • move directly anywhere on the line, or on the  screen
  • Operators such as 'd' or 'c' that can be combined with any motion

  • Example #2: smart ranges

      
  • The '%' motion  moves from a parenthesis
  • it will scan  character by character to the right, until the first one is found, and then  moving to the character matching that one.
  • since we have  it in the clipboard, we can use Ctrl-R, " to paste it in insert mode

  • Misconception #3: you gotta be nuts and/or a genius to use it

      

  • Example #3: manipulating delimited blocks

      
  • How do you select the text inside
  • 'i' or 'a' (they can only be used after an operator like 'd' or  'c')
  • 'i>' refers to "the current 'i'nner angle bracket block", so you can  do 'di>'
  • (or even 'b' from  'b'lock)
  • or 'a' to include the delimiting characters too.

  • Misconception #4: hjkl to move around?

      
  • 'f' followed by any  other character to find its next occurrence
  • ']]' and the likes to navigate by functions, etc.

  • Example #4: nice commands

      
  • 'zt', 'zz' and 'zb' keep the cursor a
  • 'H'ighest, 'M'iddle, or  'L'ower line on the screen
  • '*' searches forward for the next occurrence of the  word under the cursor ('#' does the same backward

  • Misconception #5: since you are thinking 90% of the time, and editing 10%, the productivity gain might be there, but it's useless anyway

      
  • I'll  wager that this is wrong.

  • Example #5: indenting a block

      
  • '>aB' ("indent a Block")

  • Misconception #6: it's just sticking to a disappearing past

      

      

  • Example #6: visual nature

      

  • Correct-conception #1: steep learning curve

      

  • Closing words

      

  32 more annotations...

• 25 Mar 14
  

  tunggul siswoyo

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• 07 Mar 14
  

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• 04 Mar 14
  

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• 27 Mar 13
  

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• 30 Jan 13
  

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• 16 Dec 12
  

  papayasoft

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• 11 Nov 12
  

  jonnor

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• 14 Sep 12
  

  Paanini Navilekar

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• 17 Jul 12
  

  driodeiros
  • You are always in  normal mode, and only enter insert mode for short bursts of typing  text, after which you press <Esc> to go to normal mode.
  • And now we come to insert commands. These commands enter insert mode and let  you type text until you press <Esc>. Ok, in the case of these commands,  the full command includes all the text you typed between 'i' (or whatever  command you used to enter insert mode, as there are several) and  <Esc>
  • let's take the 'ce' command
  • It's the same as 'd', but  with the distinction that it enters insert mode, instead of staying in normal  mode
  • Knowing about the 'c' command, which deletes the extents of the next motion  (also copying it to the clipboard) and enters insert mode, we can type just  'c%' ("change match") from the above case and we get the following
  • After typing di> ("delete inner angle-block")
  • n other editors, you move around, you  select, you type TAB or the shortcut to auto-indent. Not so with vim, just  three keystrokes: '>aB' ("indent a Block") and you get this:

  5 more annotations...

• 08 Jul 12
  

  pfrenssen

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• 14 Apr 12
  

  Naoj Gior

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• 04 Apr 12
  

  Jochen Bachmann

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• 07 Feb 12
  

  keenhenry1109

  vim vi editor programming linux tutorial unix blog

  • '.' command repeats the last  complete, combined editing command
• 06 Feb 12
  

  Mark A

  Linux Editors

• 04 Feb 12
  

  Abhay Bothra

  vim vi modes zen

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  activeneuron

  philosophy editor programming tricks vim

• 03 Feb 12
  

  sebastianstock
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  John Slade

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  Byju Veedu

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  Eapen G

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  Y A

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  Joseph Shanley

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• 02 Feb 12
  

  kellypacker

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  borislv

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  Dan Loewenherz

  vim programming

• 

  vim

• 

  rishabh Sharma

  ince you're already probably used to other editors, and if the arrow keys work in insert mode (they do i

  vi vim lessons

• 

  Stephan Paukner

  linux software

  • You are always in  normal mode, and only enter insert mode for short bursts of typing  text, after which you press <Esc> to go to normal mode
  • Commands in vi/vim are meant to be combined
  • the '.' command repeats the last  complete, combined editing command

  1 more annotation...

• 

  gjuric

  vim

• 

  Jan Beilicke

  vim vi editor programming tutorial unix linux tips advice

• 24 Jan 12
  

  max j

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• 29 Dec 11
  

  siva sankaran s

  reading again feb 5 2015

  linux tutorials win7-chrome tool motivation

• 06 Nov 11
  

  Grzegorz Wierzowiecki

  vi vim vgvg vg performance writing programming Error_501 geek article 2rip teaching:resource

• 25 Oct 11
  

  robpaller

  vim vi unix

• 23 Oct 11
  

  Alexey Tarasevich
  • you never think about insert mode  as a mode where you stay.
  • The boon is that the text you type in the next (short) input session is  also part of the command.
  • And this during this  period of editing, you are feeling a tremendous sensation of power.

  1 more annotation...

• 27 Sep 11
  

  Tony L

  vi vim learn article

• 

  Gabor Pardi-Kis

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• 31 Aug 11
  

  Kevin Smith

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• 28 Aug 11
  

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• 09 May 11
  

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  Jacek Wysocki

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• 05 Mar 11
  

  Matheus Muller

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• 06 Feb 11
  

  Kenneth A. Drake

  Yes, there are definite reasons why the vi/vim editing model
  is just superior to any other out there. And you don't need to be a
  Unix whiz to use it, either: vim is available for free for almost any
  platform out there, and there are plug-ins to get the fu

  linux unix programming usability vi

• 03 Feb 11
  

  Nicolas Bottarini

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• 17 Jan 11
  

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  vim vi for:sperez@isigma.es

• 19 Dec 10
  

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• 18 Dec 10
  

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• 15 Dec 10
  

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• 25 Nov 10
  

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• 22 Nov 10
  

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• 21 Sep 10
  

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• 17 Sep 10
  

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• 13 Sep 10
  

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