The Basics of Vim

What is this page?

This page is designed to guide you through the basics of using vim. By basics, I mean it. This is certainly not a comprehensive guide or tutorial for vim, but I do hope that, after reading this page, you'll understand enough to get around and be interseted enough to explore on your own.

What this page will cover:

What is Vim
Simple Navigation & features
vimrc

What is vim?

Vim is a (Unix)text editor. It comes with Linux, BSD, and macOS.

Simple Navigation & Features

How to move w/keyboard keys
Basic Commands
Opening/Closing files

How to move w/ keyboard keys

The basics of movement in Vim are Left/Right and Up/Down. Below, you can see the key to press for each, along with the arrow for their respective directions.

      ^
      k
 < h     l >
      j
      ⌄

Basic commands

i: i=insert. Move your cursor to the character after the text you want to edit, press i, type/edit, then press esc to stop editing.
x: x=simple delete. Place your cursor over the character you wish to remove and press x. You did not enter any special mode, so there's nothing to exit.
d_: d_=delete(type). On its own, d doesn't do anything. However, it can be combined with other letters for different kinds of deletion. Some examples include: dw, de, d$.
u: u=undo. If you accidentally use a command without meaning to, press u to undo the last command executed. This is one of the most important commands, especially for those just starting out with Vim.
U: Basically the big brother of u, pressing U will do the same--but for a whole line.

Opening/Closing files

To open a file with Vim, open the terminal navigate to the file location, and type: vim filename.
Example:(file name trial.html)

USER location % vim trial.html return (or enter).
*file opened

To close a file in Vim, press esc + shift + ; (shift + ; = :). This should open a sort of prompt mode(if you ever enter this mode by accident, just backspace). From here, there you have a few options

To exit and save all changes made to the file, type wq into the prompt window.
To exit and discard all changes made, type q! into the prompt space.
NOTE: if you only type q into the prompt, you will recieve an error message like E37: No write since last change (add ! to override).

Example:

esc + shift + ;
*prompt open
:[cursor]
wq or q! enter
*file closed--back in terminal

vimrc & vimtutor

Creating a vimrc file can make the user experience with vim a lot nicer. Vimrc files can change environmental aspects f rom line numbers and sytnax highlighting to the background color in vim. Some people like to modify their vim environment a lot, but, personally, I keep the modifications pretty basic--everyone's different.

If you found this page interesting and want to learn more about vim, I highly reccomend vimtutor. It will take you through a much more in-depth tutorial about vim. To access vimtutor, simply open the terminal and type vimtutor. There might be an intermediate screen that pops up. If this happens just press enter and you'll be good to go.

Thank you for reading!