Table

of Contents
Introduction 1.1
Preface 1.2
Introduction 1.3
Installation 1.4
First Steps 1.5
Modes 1.6
Typing Skills 1.7
Moving Around 1.8
Help 1.9
Editing Basics 1.10
Multiplicity 1.11
Personal Information Management 1.12
Scripting 1.13
Plugins 1.14
A Programmer's Editor 1.15
More 1.16
What Next 1.17
Feedback 1.18
Charityware 1.19
Colophon 1.20
Versions 1.21

1
Introduction

A Byte of Vim
"A Byte of Vim" is a book which aims to help you to learn how to use the Vim editor (version
7), even if all you know is how to use the computer keyboard.

The first part of this book is meant for new users who want to understand what Vim is and
learn how to use it.

The second part of this book is for people who already know how to use Vim and want to
learn about features that make Vim so powerful, such as windows and tabs, personal
information management, making it a programmer's editor, how to extend Vim with your own
plugins, and more.

Status: Incomplete
Please note that the conversion of the book to this Markdown sources is incomplete!

The original PDF is at http://files.swaroopch.com/vim/byte_of_vim_v051.pdf - unfortunately

the original sources are lost.

I welcome your contributions to complete the porting of text from the original PDF to this new
book's sources at https://github.com/swaroopch/byte-of-vim .

Who reads A Byte of Vim?

Thanks to A Byte of Vim, I have learnt how to use vim. Thank you very much for this
excellent book! ;) -- Camille L (France)

Well done!!! I've been only using vim for like 2/3 weeks now, and thus I can say that it's
just perfect for beginners like me!!! -- Jay

The book is very good and fun to read too. Thank you for sharing it. -- Yosi Izaq

Your books should sell like hot cakes for their way of presentation. -- Deepak

Awesome! Thank you for all of your hard work. It is especially nice that the beginning
starts the reader off gradually. After using vim for a couple of years I've forgotten how
weird it seems at first, so I probably wouldn't explain it that good to someone. I will be
sure to share your book to spread the vim propaganda. ;-) -- Joseph Sullivan

2
Introduction

What I am trying to say is if you have basic computer competency you should
immediately get Vim on your machine and improve your life. The best place to learn
about is to read Swaroop C H's awesome eBook A Byte of Vim, it will revolutionize how
you think about text editors in the future. -- "wooden nickels"

Have been thumbing through 'byte of vim'. learning a ton even having used vim for
years. -- Josh Nichols

Great Book !! Although I use vim everyday as an editor as well as an ide, the book
makes u realise how much more it can do. -- Raseel Bhagat

Wonderful! This was one most-required-book. I was a vim user for the past years, but
never have seen these much of facilities inside that! Thanks for the Book, Swaroop! --
Hiran Venugopalan

What a nice book. I'm a long-time vim user, but never managed to get my head around
vim scripting (apart from fixing some bugs in others' scripts). This is the best
introduction to Vim scripting (writing plugins, syntax files, ...) I have seen so far. Thanks
for putting it online! -- Anonymous (132.230.122.35)

Thank you Swaroop! I've begun reading it and must say it's very well written. And I have
no doubts this great community of us vim users here will improve it through fixes,
additions or small corrections. -- Eduard Fabra

I'd recommend A Byte of Vim as a good intro for new and experienced users alike. --
James Kovacs, Germany

Este libro me ayudó muchísimo a sacarle provecho a vim (This book helped me a lot to
take advantage of vim) -- Antonio Touriño, Panamá

I have used vi for quite a while and am pretty comfortable with it. But all I do in vi is first
get into insert mode and edit the file as if I am using notepad. I started searching for
tutorials on vi and found one that is so simple yet so amazing. I thank Swaroop CH, yes
the same guy who wrote the book A Byte of Python, for another amazing book A Byte of
Vim. It was so amazing and I started using vi like a novice vimmer. -- Nishanth

A Byte of Vim saved my day once again... -- @reku

Also:

The book was listed as the top tip for Dec 2008 on the Official Vim Tips wiki.

License

3
Introduction

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

License.

This means:

You are free to Share i.e. to copy, distribute and transmit this book
You are free to Remix i.e. to make changes to this book (especially translations)
You are free to use it for commercial purposes

Please note:

Please do not sell electronic or printed copies of the book unless you have clearly and
prominently mentioned in the description that these copies are not from the original
author of this book.
Attribution must be shown in the introductory description and front page of the
document by linking back to http://vim.swaroopch.com/ and clearly indicating that the
original text can be fetched from this location.
All the code/scripts provided in this book is licensed under the 3-clause BSD License
unless otherwise noted.

Read Now
You can read it online at http://vim.swaroopch.com/

Buy The Book

A printed hardcopy of the book can be purchased at http://www.swaroopch.com/buybook/ for
your offline reading pleasure, and to support the continued development and improvement of
this book.

Download
Visit https://www.gitbook.com/book/swaroopch/byte-of-vim/details for the following types of
downloads:

PDF (for desktop reading, etc.)

EPUB (for iPhone/iPad, ebook readers, etc.)
Mobi (for Kindle)

Visit https://github.com/swaroopch/byte-of-vim for the raw content (for suggesting

corrections, changes, translating, etc.)

4
Introduction

Read the book in your native language

If you are interested in reading or contributing translations of this book to other human
languages, please see "Translations" chapter.

5
Preface

Preface

About Vim
Vim is a computer program used for writing, and it provides a range of features that help you
write better.

Why Vim?
Let's face it, it's very rare to produce your best work on the first attempt. Most likely, you will
keep editing it frequently until it becomes 'good'.

As Louis Brandeis once said:

There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

Making these numerous rapid changes would be a lot easier if we had a capable editor to
help us, and that is exactly where Vim shines, and is far better compared to most plain text
editors and rich document editors.

Why Write This Book?

I have been using the Vim editor ever since I learned to use the old vi editor during Unix
classes in college. Vim is one of the few pieces of software that I use for nearly 10 hours a
day. I knew there were just so many features that I didn't know about but could potentially be
useful to me, so I started exploring Vim little by little.

To crystallize my understanding and to help others also explore Vim, I started writing this
collection of notes, and called it a book.

Some of the principles I have tried to keep in mind while writing these notes are:

1. Simple literature. The importance of this should be reinforced again and again.
2. Emphasis on examples and how-to.
3. The one-stop shop for readers to learn Vim - from getting started to learning advanced
stuff.
4. Get the user to understand how to do things the Vim way - from modes to buffers to
customization. Most people learn only the basic vi commands and do not attempt to
learn anything beyond that. Learning such concepts is the tipping point, they become

6
Preface

hardcore Vim users i.e. Vimmers, which means they extract the most out of Vim, which
is the intent of this book.
5. A lot of things are documented and stored here as a reference for people such as how
to use Vim as an IDE, etc. There are various ways of doing it and instead of the user
struggling to figure out which plugins to try out, the book already has the basic
background work already for the reader.
6. Just enough info to get you to understand and use, not everything required (Pareto
principle)
7. Relatedly, the book shouldn't attempt to rewrite the reference manual. Where
appropriate, it should simply point out the relevant parts. This way, there is no
redundancy, the user learns to use the awesome built-in reference manual which is
important, and the book can stand on its own strengths as well.

To summarize, the mantra is Concepts. Examples. Pithy.

Status of the Book

The book was a work-in-progress and last updated in 2008. Eight years later (2016), I
recreated the book in GitBook format. So let's just say it was a "1.0" book in 2008 :-)

Constructive suggestions are most welcome. Please send your thoughts and suggestions
via email or github issues.

Official Website
The official website of the book is http://vim.swaroopch.com/ . From the website, you can
read the whole book online or download the latest versions of the book, and also send me
feedback.

Something To Think About

Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest
things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it. -- Michael
Crichton

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is
nothing left to take away. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

7
Preface

8
Introduction

Introduction

What is Vim?
Vim is a computer program used for writing any kind of text, whether it is your shopping list,
a book, or software code.

What makes Vim special is that it is one of those few software which is both simple and
powerful.

Simple means it is easy to get started with. Simple means that it has a minimalistic interface
that helps you to concentrate on your main task - writing. Simple means it is built around few
core concepts that helps you learn deeper functionality easily.

Powerful means getting things done faster, better and easier. Powerful means making not-
so-simple things possible. Powerful does not mean it has to be complicated. Powerful
means following the paradigm of "Minimal effort. Maximal effect."

What can Vim do?

I can hear you say, "So it's a text editor. What's the big deal anyway?"

Well, a lot.

Let's see some random examples to compare Vim with your current choice of editor. The
point of this exercise is for you to answer the question "How would I do this in the editor I
currently use?" for each example.

NOTE: Don't worry too much about the details of the Vim commands here, the point
here is to enlighten you with the possibilities, not to start explaining how these things
work. That is what the rest of the book is for.

In your
Edit In Vim
editor
How do you move the (Fill this
Press 7j
cursor down by 7 lines? column)

How do you delete a

Press dw
word? Yes, a "word"
How do you search the
current file for the current Press *

9
Introduction

word that the cursor is at?

How to find and replace

Run :50,10s/old/new/g
only in lines 50-100?

How to view two different

parts of the same file Run :sp to 'split' the view
simultaneously?

The cursor is at a file

name, how to jump to that Press gf (which means 'g'o to 'f'ile)
file?
Run :colorscheme desert to choose the
Switch to a better theme?
desert theme

How to map ctrl-s to Run :nmap <c-s> :w<CR> ( <CR> means

save the file? 'c'arriage 'r'eturn, i.e. the enter key)
How to save the current
set of open files & Run :mksession ~/session.vim and then open
settings so that you can Vim next time with vim -S ~/session.vim
restart the session later?
How to see colors for Run :syntax on . If it doesn't recognize the
different parts of your language properly, use set ft=python for
code? example.
How to hide different
parts of the file so that Run :set foldmethod=indent assuming your
you can concentrate on file is properly indented.
only one part at a time?
Use :tabedit <file> to open multiple files in
How to open multiple files
"tabs" (just like browser tabs), and use gt to
in tabs?
switch between tabs
You use some words
Press ctrl-n to see the list of "completions"
frequently in your
for the current word, based on all the words
document and wish there
that you have used in the current document.
was a way that it could be
Alternatively, use :ab mas Maslow's hierarchy
quickly filled in the next
of needs to expadn the abbreviation
time you use the same
automatically when you type m a s <space> .
word?

You have some data

where only the first 10
characters in each line
Press ctrl-v , select the text and press y to
are useful and the rest is
copy the selected rows and columns of text.
no longer useful for you.
How do you get only that
data?
(1) Run the following: :for i in range(0,
line('$')) | call setline(i,
What if you received a
tolower(getline(i))) | endfor .
document from someone
(2) Don't worry, details will be explored in later
which is all in capitals,

10
Introduction

which is all in capitals, chapters. A more succinct way would be to run

find it irritating and want :%s#\\(.\\)#\\l\\1#g , but the first way would
to convert it to lower be simpler. (3) Select all the text using 1GVG
case? and then using the u operator to convert the
selection to lowercase.

Phew. Are you convinced yet?

In these examples, you can see the power of Vim in action. Any other editor would make it
insanely hard to achieve the same level of functionality. And yet, amazingly, all this power is
made as understandable as possible.

Notice that we didn't use the mouse even once during these examples! This is a good thing.
Count how many times you shift your hand between the keyboard and the mouse in a single
day, and you'll realize why it is good to avoid it when possible.

Don't be overwhelmed by the features here. The best part of Vim is that you don't need to
know all of these features to be productive with it, you just need to know a few basic
concepts. After learning those basic concepts, all the other features can be easily learned
when you need them.

11
Installation

Installation
Let's see how to get Vim installed on your computer.

Windows
If you use Microsoft Windows, then the following steps will help you get the latest version of
Vim 7 installed on your computer:

1. Visit http://www.vim.org/download.php#pc
2. Download the "Self-installing executable" (gvim72.exe [1] as of this writing)
3. Double-click the file and install Vim like any other Windows-based software.

Mac OS X
If you use Mac OS X, then you already have the terminal version of Vim installed. Run the
menu command Finder → Applications → Utilities → Terminal. In the terminal, run the
command vim and press enter, you should now see the Vim welcome screen.

If you want to use a graphical version of Vim, download the latest version of the Cocoa-
based MacVim project. Double-click the file (such as MacVim-7_2-stable-1_2.tbz ), it will be
unarchived and a directory called MacVim-7_2-stable-1_2 will be created. Open the directory,
and copy the MacVim app to your Applications directory.

For more details MacVim diffrences, including how to run MacVim from the terminal see the
macvim reference:

1. Click on Finder → Applications → MacVim.

2. Type :help macvim and press the Enter key.

Linux / BSD
If you are using a Linux or *BSD system, then you will have at least a minimal console
version of Vim already installed. Open a terminal program such as konsole or gnome-
terminal , run vim and you should see the Vim welcome screen.

12
Installation

If you get a message like vim: command not found , then Vim is not installed. You will have to
use your system-specific tools to install Vim, such as aptitude in Ubuntu/Debian Linux, yum
in Fedora Linux, pkg_add or port in FreeBSD, etc. Please consult your specific system's
documentation and forums on how to install new packages.

If you want the graphical version, install the vim-gnome package or alternatively, the gvim
package.

Summary
Depending on how it is installed, you can run the vim command in the shell or use your
operating system's menus to open a graphical version of the Vim application.

Now that we have Vim installed on your computer, let us proceed to use it in the next
chapter.

13
First Steps

First Steps

Starting Vim
First step is, of course, to learn how to start Vim.

Graphical Version

Windows
Click on Start → Programs → Vim 7 → gVim.

Mac OS X
Click on Finder → Applications → MacVim.

Linux / BSD
Click on Applications → Accessories → GVim Text Editor, or press Alt+F2 , type gvim and
press the enter key.

Terminal version

Windows
Click on Start → Run, type vim and press the enter key.

Mac OS X
Click on Finder → Applications → Utilities → Terminal, type vim and press the enter key.

Linux / BSD
Click on Applications → Accessories → Terminal, or press Alt+F2 , type konsole / gnome-
terminal and press the enter key. Then, type vim and press the enter key.

Summary

14
First Steps

From now onwards when we say 'open Vim', use either of the two methods mentioned
above.

NOTE: When you started Vim, you might have noticed that you can't immediately start
typing text. Don't panic, all will be explained in a little while.

Graphical or Terminal?
The graphical version of Vim has menus at the top of the application as well as various
options accessible via the mouse, but note that this is completely optional. You can still
access all the features of Vim using only the keyboard.

Why is this important? Because once a person becomes efficient at typing, using only the
keyboard makes the person much faster and less error-prone, as opposed to using the
mouse. This is because the hand movement required to switch between the keyboard and
the mouse is slow and there is a context switch required in the mind of the person when
shifting the hand between the keyboard and the mouse. If we make it a habit to use the
keyboard as much as possible, you're saving valuable hand movement.

Of course, this is subjective. Some people prefer the mouse and some prefer the keyboard. I
encourage you to use the keyboard as much as possible to experience the real power of
Vim.

Introduction to Modes
Imagine it's a Saturday evening and you're bored of the shows on television. You want to
watch an old favorite movie instead. So, you switch the TV to video mode so that it shows
what the DVD player is displaying instead of the cable channels. Note that the television is
still displaying video, but you switch the context on whether you want to watch a DVD or a
live television channel.

Similarly, Vim has modes. For example, Vim has a mode for writing text, a mode for running
commands, etc. They are all related to the main purpose of editing text, but you switch
context on whether you want to simply type stuff or you want to run some commands on the
text.

Isn't that simple?

Traditionally, the concept of modes is the most oft-cited reason by beginners on why they
find Vim "confusing". I compare it to riding a bicycle - you'll trip a few times, but once you've
got the hang of it, you'll wonder what the fuss was all about.

15
First Steps

So why does Vim have modes? To make things as simple as possible, even though its
usage may seem "strange" at first.

What do I mean by that? Let's take an example - one of the key goals in Vim is to make it
fully accessible from the keyboard without ever having to need to use a mouse (you can still
use the mouse if you want to but it is strictly optional). In such a scenario, how would you
distinguish between the text you want to write, and the commands that you want to run?
Vim's solution is to have a "normal" mode where you can execute commands and an "insert"
mode where you are simply writing text. You can switch between the two modes any time.
For example, pressing i switches Vim to insert mode, and pressing <Esc> switches Vim
back to normal mode.

How do traditional editors achieve this distinction between commands and writing text? By
using graphical menus and keyboard shortcuts. The problem is that this does not scale. First
of all, if you have hundreds of commands, creating menus for each of these commands
would be insane and confusing. Secondly, customizing how to use each of these commands
would be even more difficult.

Let's take a specific example. Suppose you want to change all occurrences of the word
"from" to the word "to" in a document. In a traditional editor, you can run a menu command
like Edit → Replace (or use a keyboard shortcut like ctrl-r ) and then enter the 'from' word
and the 'to' word and then click on 'Replace'. Then, check the 'Replace All' option. In Vim,
you simply run :%s/from/to/g in the normal mode. The :s is the "substitute" command.
See how simpler this is?

What if you want to now run this substitution only in the first 10 lines of the text and you want
to have a yes/no confirmation for each replacement? In traditional text editors, achieving the
yes/no confirmation is easy by unchecking the 'Replace All' option, but notice that you have
to first search for this option and then use the mouse to click on the option (or use a long
series of keys using the keyboard). But how will you run the Replace for only the first 10
lines? In Vim, you can simply run :0,10s/from/to/gc . The new c option we are using
means we want a 'c'onfirmation message for every replace.

By separating the writing (insert) and command (normal) modes, Vim makes it easy for us to
switch the two contexts easily.

Notice how the first steps to using Vim seem a little "weird", a little "strange", but once you
have seen it in action, it starts to make sense. The best part is that these core concepts will
help you to understand all you need to know on how to use Vim.

Since you now understand the difference between normal mode and insert mode, you can
look up the various commands you can run in the normal mode, and you can immediately
start using them. Compare that to learning new commands in traditional editors which

16
First Steps

generally means having to read a lot of documentation, searching a lot of menus, a lot of trial
and error or plain asking someone for help.

Personally, I find the names of the modes not intuitive to beginners. I prefer calling the insert
mode as "writing" mode and the normal mode as "rewriting" mode, but we will stick to the
standard Vim terminology to avoid confusion.

NOTE: All commands in the normal mode should end with the enter key to signal Vim
that we have written the full command. So, when we say run :help vim-modes-intro , it
means you should type :help vim-modes-intro and then press the enter key at the end
of the command.

Writing a file
1. Open Vim.

2. Type :edit hello.txt and press the enter key.

17
First Steps

3. Press i to switch to insert mode.

4. Type the text Hello World .

18
First Steps

5. Press the <Esc> key.

6. Type :write and press the enter key.

19
First Steps

7. Close Vim by running :quit .

Congratulations! You just wrote your first file using Vim :-).

Does this seem like a lot of steps? Yes, it does, at first. That is because this is the first time
we are getting used to opening Vim, writing a file and closing Vim. You have to keep in mind
that this will only be a minor part of your time compared to the actual time that goes into in

20
First Steps

editing the content of the document.

Let us see what the above commands do.

:edit hello.txt or simply :e hello.txt

This opens a file for editing. If the file with the specified name does not exist, it will
be created the first time we "save" the file.
Press i
This switches Vim to the insert mode
Type the text Hello World
This is where you type the actual text that you want to write.
Press <Esc>
This escapes Vim back to normal mode
:write or simply :w

This tells Vim to write the text (which is currently stored in the computer's memory)
to the file on the hard disk. This means that whatever we wrote so far is now
permanently stored.
:quit or simply :q

This tells Vim to quit the file in the "window" that we are editing. If there was only
one "window" open, this will also close Vim (Concept of windows will be discussed
in a later chapter).

Try to repeat this process a few times with different file names, different text, etc. so that you
get used to the basic set of steps in using Vim.

Notice that when you are in insert mode, Vim displays -- INSERT -- at the bottom left
corner. When you switch to normal mode, it will not display anything. This is because normal
mode is the default mode in which Vim runs.

Take some time to soak in this information, this is probably the hardest lesson there is to
learn about Vim, the rest is easy :)

And don't worry, help is not too far away. Actually, it's just a :help command away. For
example, run :help :edit and you'll see the documentation open up. Go ahead, try it.

Summary
We have now discussed the basic concepts and usage of Vim. See :help notation and
:help keycodes also.

Be sure to understand these concepts well. Once you start "thinking in Vim", understanding
the rest of Vim's features is easy.

21
First Steps

22
Modes

Modes
We had our first encounter with modes in the previous chapter. Now, let us explore this
concept further regarding types of modes available and what we can do in each mode.

Types of modes
There are three basic modes in Vim:

1. Normal mode is where you can run commands. This is the default mode in which Vim
starts up.
2. Insert mode is where you insert i.e. write the text.
3. Visual mode is where you visually select a bunch of text so that you can run a
command/operation only on that part of the text.

Normal mode
By default, you're in normal mode. Let's see what we can do in this mode.

Type :echo "hello world" and press enter. You should see the famous words hello world
echoed back to you. What you just did was run a Vim command called :echo and you
supplied some text to it which was promptly printed back.

Type /hello and press the enter key. Vim will search for that phrase and will jump to the
first occurrence.

This was just two simple examples of the kind of commands available in the normal mode.
We will see many more such commands in later chapters.

How to use the help

Almost as important as knowing the normal mode, is knowing how to use the :help
command. This is where you learn more about the commands available in Vim.

Remember that you do not need to know every command available in Vim, it's better to
simply know where to find them when you need them. For example, see :help usr_toc
takes us to the table of contents of the reference manual. You can see :help index to

23
Modes

search for the particular topic you are interested in, for example, run /insert mode to see
the relevant information regarding insert mode.

If you can't remember these two help topics at first, just press F1 or run :help .

Insert mode
When Vim starts up in normal mode, we have seen how to use i to get into insert mode.
There are other ways of switching from normal mode to insert mode as well:

1. Run :e dapping.txt
2. Press i
3. Type the following paragraph (including all the typos and mistakes, we'll correct them
later):

means being determined about being determined and being passionate about
being passionate

4. Press <Esc> key to switch back to normal mode.

5. Run :w

Oops, we seem to have missed a word at the beginning of the line, and our cursor is at the
end of the line, what do we do now?

What would be the most efficient way of going to the start of the line and insert the missing
word? Should we use the mouse to move the cursor to the start of the line? Should we use
arrow keys to travel all the way to the start of the line. Should we press home key and then
press i to switch back to insert mode again?

It turns out that the most efficient way to be press I (upper case I):

1. Press I
2. Type Dappin
3. Press <Esc> key to switch back to the normal mode.

Notice that we used a different key to switch to insert mode, its specialty is that it moves the
cursor to the start of the line and then switches to the insert mode.

Also notice how important it is to switch back to the normal mode as soon as you're done
typing the text. Making this a habit will be beneficial because most of your work (after the
initial writing phase) will be in the normal mode - that's where the all-important
rewriting/editing/polishing happens.

24
Modes

Now, let's take a different variation of the i command. Notice that pressing i will place
your cursor before the current position and then switch to insert mode. To place the cursor
'a'fter the current position, press a .

1. Press a
2. Type g (to complete the word as "Dapping")
3. Press <Esc> to switch back to normal mode

Similar to the relationship between i and I keys, there is a relationship between the a
and A keys - if you want to append text at the end of the line, press the A key.

1. Press A
2. Type . (put a dot to complete the sentence properly)
3. Press <Esc> to switch back to the normal mode

To summarize the four keys we have learnt so far:

Command Action
i insert text just before the cursor
I insert text at the start of the line
a append text just after the cursor
A append text at the end of the line

Notice how the upper case commands are 'bigger' versions of the lower case commands.

Now that we are proficient in quickly moving in the current line, let's see how to move to new
lines. If you want to 'o'pen a new line to start writing, press the o key.

1. Press o
2. Type I'm a rapper .
3. Press <Esc> to switch back to the normal mode.

Hmmm, it would be more appealing if that new sentence we wrote was in a paragraph by
itself.

1. Press O (upper case 'O')

2. Press <Esc> to switch back to the normal mode.

To summarize the two new keys we just learnt:

Command Action
o open a new line below
O open a new line above

25
Modes

Notice how the upper and lower case 'o' commands are opposite in the direction in which
they open the line.

Was there something wrong in the text that we just wrote? Aah, it should be 'dapper', not
'rapper'! It's a single character that we have to change, what's the most efficient way to make
this change?

We could press i to switch to insert mode, press <Del> key to delete the r , type d and
then press <Esc> to switch back to the insert mode. But that is four steps for such a simple
change! Is there something better? You can use the s key - s for 's'ubstitute.

1. Move the cursor to the character r (or simply press b to move 'b'ack to the start of
the word)
2. Press s
3. Type d
4. Press <Esc> to switch back to the normal mode

Well, okay, it may not have saved us much right now, but imagine repeating such a process
over and over again throughout the day! Making such a mundane operation as fast as
possible is beneficial because it helps us focus our energies to more creative and interesting
aspects. As Linus Torvalds says, "it's not just doing things faster, but because it is so fast,
the way you work dramatically changes."

Again, there is a bigger version of the s key, S which substitutes the whole line instead of
the current character.

1. Press S
2. Type Be a sinner .
3. Press <Esc> to switch back to normal mode.

Command Action
s substitute the current character
S substitute the current line

Let's go back our last action... Can't we make it more efficient since we want to 'r'eplace just
a single character? Yes, we can use the r key.

1. Move the cursor to the first character of the word sinner .

2. Press r
3. Type d

Notice we're already back in the normal mode and didn't need to press <Esc> .

There's a bigger version of r called R which will replace continuous characters.

26
Modes

1. Move the cursor to the 'i' in sinner.

2. Press R
3. Type app (the word now becomes 'dapper')
4. Press <Esc> to switch back to normal mode.

Command Action
r replace the current character
R replace continuous characters

The text should now look like this:

Dapping means being determined about being determined and being passionate about
being passionate.
Be a dapper.

Phew. We have covered a lot in this chapter, but I guarantee that this is the only step that is
the hardest. Once you understand this, you've pretty much understood the heart and soul of
how Vim works, and all other functionality in Vim, is just icing on the cake.

To repeat, understanding how modes work and how switching between modes work is the
key to becoming a Vimmer, so if you haven't digested the above examples yet, please feel
free to read them again. Take all the time you need.

If you want to read more specific details about these commands, see :help inserting and
:help replacing .

Visual mode
Suppose that you want to select a bunch of words and replace them completely with some
new text that you want to write. What do you do?

One way would be to use the mouse to click at the start of the text that you are interested in,
hold down the left mouse button, drag the mouse till the end of the relevant text and then
release the left mouse button. This seems like an awful lot of distraction.

We could use the <Del> or <Backspace> keys to delete all the characters, but this seems
even worse in efficiency.

The most efficient way would be to position the cursor at the start of the text, press v to start
the visual mode, use arrow keys or any text movement commands to the move to the end of
the relevant text (for example, press 5e to move to the end of the 5th word counted from
the current cursor position) and then press c to 'c'hange the text. Notice the improvement
in efficiency.

27
Modes

In this particular operation (the c command), you'll be put into insert mode after it is over,
so press <Esc> to return to normal mode.

The v command works on a character basis. If you want to operate in terms of lines, use
the upper case V .

Summary
Here is a drawing of the relationship between the different modes:

+---------+ i,I,a,A,o,O,r,R,s,S +----------+

| Normal +---------->------------+ Insert |
| mode | | mode |
| +----------<------------+ |
+-+---+---+ <Esc> +----------+
| |
| |
| |
| |
v, | |
V V ^ <Esc>
| |
| |
| |
| |
+---+---+----+
| Visual |
| mode |
+------------+

NOTE: This drawing was created using Vim and Dr.Chip's DrawIt plugin.

See :help vim-modes-intro and :help mode-switching for details on the various modes and
how to switch between them respectively.

If you remain unconvinced about why the concept of modes is central to Vim's power and
simplicity, do read the articles on "Why Vi" and about the vi input model on why it is a better
way of editing.

28
Typing Skills

Typing Skills
We just learned about how to switch between the three basic modes in Vim. Isn't it hard to
remember all those keys? How do you remember which key is for which operation? Well,
that's the "key" question. The answer is that you shouldn't "remember", your fingers should
automatically know what to do!. It must (literally) be on your finger tips.

So how do we do that? By making it a habit. Walking is not a nature that humans have at
birth, but after trying a bit and by habit, we learn to walk. Same with Vim, although it requires
less effort.

Vim was designed for people who are familiar with the keyboard. Why? Because we spend
most of our time in editing tasks, which implicitly make extensive use of the keyboard, and
the faster we are able to type, the faster we get the work done.

Let's start with a basic technique to get you comfortable with the keyboard.

Home Row Technique

Place your fingers on the home row of the keyboard by positioning your hands such that the
fingers of your left hand are on the ASDF keys and the fingers of your right hand are on the
JKL; keys as shown in the drawing (artist unknown).

Getting your hands to be comfortable in this position is one of the most important steps in
learning how to use the keyboard effectively. The idea is that you should be able to type any
key using the finger that is closest to that key and then your finger should automatically
come back to its original position. It might seem difficult at first but try it a couple of times
and you will see that you will type much faster this way.

29
Typing Skills

Note that most keyboards have some home row markers on the F and J keys which
serves as a reminder for you on where your fingers should be placed.

Now, try typing the alphabets A-Z using the home row technique.

Relatedly, there is also a free online typing tutorial available that explains the basics of
typing skills. I would encourage you to try it for just ten minutes and explore.

Vim graphical keyboard cheat sheet

If you want to know how each key can map to something useful in Vim, see this Vim
graphical cheat sheet by 'jng'.

Although a lot of commands are listed, for now you only need to learn the basic 'hjkl' keys
which translates to left, down, up, right keys respectively. You'll learn more about this in the
next chapter.

Summary
Notice that our efficiency in using Vim is directly proportional to the efficiency of using the
keyboard.

30
Typing Skills

31
Moving Around

Moving Around
Once you've written the initial text, editing and rewriting requires a lot of movement between
the various parts of the document. For example, you're writing a story and you suddenly get
an idea for a new plot, but to develop this plot you need to go back to the part where the
protagonist enters the new city (or something like that)... how do you quickly move around
the text so that you don't lose your train of thought?

Let's see a few examples of how Vim makes this fast.

Want to move the cursor to the next word? Press w .

Want to move to to the next paragraph? Press } .
Want to move to the 3rd occurrence of the letter 'h'? Press 3fh .
Want to move 35 lines downwards? Press 35j .
After one of the above movements, want to jump back to the previous location? Press
ctrl-o .

Want to learn how all these work? Let's dive in.

First, open a file called chandrayaan.txt and type the following text from Wikipedia:

Chandrayaan-1 is India's first mission to the moon. Launched by India's national space
agency the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The unmanned lunar
exploration mission includes a lunar orbiter and an impactor. The spacecraft was
launched by a modified version of the PSLV XL on 22 October 2008 from Satish
Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh at 06:23 IST (00:52 UTC). The
vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008. The Moon
Impact Probe was successfully impacted at the lunar south pole at 20:31 hours on 14
November 2008.
The remote sensing satellite had a mass of 1,380 kilograms (3,042 lb) at launch and
675 kilograms (1,488 lb) at lunar orbit and carries high resolution remote sensing
equipment for visible, near infrared, and soft and hard X-ray frequencies. Over a two-
year period, it is intended to survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its
chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. The polar regions are of special
interest, as they might contain ice. The lunar mission carries five ISRO payloads and
six payloads from other international space agencies including NASA, ESA, and the
Bulgarian Aerospace Agency, which were carried free of cost.

Move your cursor, the Vim way

32
Moving Around

The most basic keys that you should use are the 'hjkl' keys. These 4 keys correspond to the
left, down, up and right arrow keys respectively. Notice these keys are situated directly under
your right hand when they are placed on the home row.

But why not use the arrow keys themselves? The problem is that they are located in a
separate location in the keyboard and it requires as much hand movement as it requires to
use a mouse.

Remember, that the right hand fingers should always be placed on jkl; keys (and the
thumb on the space bar). Now, let's see how to use these 4 keys:

Key Mnemonic

h
You have to stretch your index finger (which is on 'j') to the left to press the 'h'.
This is the left-most key and signifies going left.
j The drooping 'j' key signifies going down.
k The upward pointing 'k' key signifies going up.
l The right-most 'l' key signifies going right.

Note that we can repeat the operation by prefixing a count. For example, 2j will repeat the
j operation 2 times.

33
Moving Around

Open up the chandrayaan.txt text document and start practicing these keys:

1. Position your cursor at the first letter 'C' of the document.

2. Press 2j and it should skip the current long line, the blank line and go to the second
line i.e. second paragraph.
3. Press 2k to get back to where we were. Or alternatively, press ctrl-o to jump back.
4. Press 5l to move 5 characters to the right.
5. Press 5h to move left by 5 characters. Or alternatively, press ctrl-o to jump back.

Make it a habit to use the 'hjkl' keys instead of the arrow keys. Within a few tries, you'll
notice how much faster you can be using these keys.

Similarly, there are more simple keys that replace the following special movements. Notice
that this again is intended to reduce hand movement. In this particular case, people are
prone to searching and hunting for these special keys, so we can avoid that altogether.

Traditional Vim
'home' key moves to the start of the
^ key (think 'anchored to the start')
line
'end' key moves to the end of the
$ key (think 'the buck stops here')
line
ctrl-b which means move one screen
'pgup' key moves one screen up
'b'ackward
ctrl-f which means move one screen
'pgdn' key moves one screen down
'f'orward

If you know the absolute line number that you want to jump to, say line 50, press 50G and
Vim will jump to the 50th line. If no number is specified, G will take you to the last line of the
file. How do you get to the top of the file? Simple, press 1G . Notice how a single key can do
so much.

Move the cursor to the first line by pressing 1G .

Move 20 characters to the right by pressing 20l .
Move back to the first character by pressing ^ .
Jump to the last character by pressing $ .
Press G to jump to the last line.

What if you wanted to the middle of the text that is currently being shown in the window?

Press H to jump as 'h'igh as possible (first line of the window)

Press M to jump to the 'm'iddle of the window
Press L to jump as 'l'ow as possible (last line being displayed)

34
Moving Around

You must have started to notice the emphasis on touch-typing and never having to move
your hands off the main area. That's a good thing.

Words, sentences, paragraphs

We have seen how to move by characters and lines. But we tend to think of our text as
words and how we put them together - sentences, paragraphs, sections, and so on. So, why
not move across such text parts i.e. "text objects"?

Let's take the first few words from our sample text:

The polar regions are of special interest, as they might contain ice.

First, let's position the cursor on the first character by pressing ^ .

[T]he polar regions are of special interest, as they might contain ice.

NOTE: We are using the square brackets to mark the cursor position.

Want to move to the next 'w'ord? Press w . The cursor should now be at the 'p' in 'polar'.

The [p]olar regions are of special interest, as they might contain ice.

How about moving 2 words forward? Just add the prefix count to 'w': 2w .

The polar regions [a]re of special interest, as they might contain ice.

Similarly, to move to the 'e'nd of the next word, press e .

The polar regions ar[e] of special interest, as they might contain ice.

To move one word 'b'ackward, press b . By prefixing a count, 2b will go back by 2 words.

The polar [r]egions are of special interest, as they might contain ice.

See :help word-motions for details.

We have seen character motions and word motions, let's move on to sentences.

[C]handrayaan-1 is India's first mission to the moon. Launched by India's national

space agency the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The unmanned lunar
exploration mission includes a lunar orbiter and an impactor. The spacecraft was
launched by a modified version of the PSLV XL on 22 October 2008 from Satish
Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh at 06:23 IST (00:52 UTC). The
vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008. The Moon
Impact Probe was successfully impacted at the lunar south pole at 20:31 hours on 14
November 2008.

35
Moving Around

Position the cursor at the first character using ^ .

To move to the next sentence, press ) .

Chandrayaan-1 is India's first mission to the moon. [L]aunched by India's national

space agency the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The unmanned lunar
exploration mission includes a lunar orbiter and an impactor. The spacecraft was
launched by a modified version of the PSLV XL on 22 October 2008 from Satish
Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh at 06:23 IST (00:52 UTC). The
vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008. The Moon
Impact Probe was successfully impacted at the lunar south pole at 20:31 hours on 14
November 2008.

Isn't that cool?

To move to the previous sentence, press ( .

Go ahead, try it out and see how fast you can move. Again, you can prefix a count such as
3) to move forward by 3 sentences.

Now, use the whole text and try out moving by paragraphs. Press } to move to the next
paragraph and { to move to the previous paragraph.

Notice that the 'bigger' brackets is for the bigger text object. If you had already noticed this,
then congratulations, you have already started to think like a winner, err, "think like a
Vimmer".

Again, don't try to remember these keys, try to make it a habit such that your fingers
naturally use these keys.

See :help cursor-motions for more details.

Make your mark

You are writing some text but you suddenly remember that you have to update a related
section in the same document, but you do not want to forget where you are currently so that
you can come back to this later. What do you do?

Normally, this would mean scrolling to that section, update it, and then scroll back to where
you were. This is a lot of overhead and we may tend to forget where we were last at.

We can do things a bit smarter in Vim. Move the cursor to the 5th line in the following text
(the words by John Lennon). Use ma to create a mark named 'a'. Move the cursor to
wherever you want, for example 4j .

36
Moving Around

I am eagerly awaiting my next disappointment. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

Every man’s memory is his private literature. -- Aldous Huxley
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. -- John Lennon
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. -- Confucius
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the
present moment. -- Buddha
The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your
freedom to choose. -- Thornton Wilder

Press 'a (i.e. single quote followed by the name of the mark) and voila, Vim jumps (back)
to the line where that mark was located.

You can use any alphabet (a-zA-Z) to name a mark which means you can have up to 52
named marks for each file.

Jump around
In the various movements that we have learned, we might often want to jump back to the
previous location or to the next location after a movement. To do this, simply press ctrl-o
to jump to the previous location and ctrl-i to jump forward to the next location again.

Parts of the text

There are various ways you can specify text objects in Vim so that you can pass them to a
command. For example, you want to visually select a part of the text and then convert the
case (from upper to lower or from lower to upper case) of the text using the ~ key.

Open the dapping.txt file that we created in previous chapters. Use the various keys to
move to the first letter of the word 'dapper' in the second paragraph. Hint: Use } , j , w .

Dapping means being determined about being determined and being passionate about
being passionate.
Be a dapper.

Press v to start the visual mode, and press ap to select 'a' 'p'aragraph. Press ~ to flip
the case of the text. If you want to cancel the selection, simply press <Esc> .

Dapping means being determined about being determined and being passionate about
being passionate.
bE A DAPPER.

37
Moving Around

Other text object mnemonics are aw which means 'a' 'w'ord, a" means a quoted string
(like "this is a quoted string"), ab means 'a' 'b'lock which means anything within a pair of
parentheses, and so on.

See :help object-motions and :help text-objects for more details.

Summary
We have seen the rich number of methods that Vim gives us to move around the text. It is
not important to remember each of these movements, it is more important to make them a
habit whenever you can, especially the ones that are most relevant to you, and when they
become a habit they reduce the movement of your hands, you become faster, and ultimately
spend more time on thinking about your writing rather than on the software you use to write.

See :help various-motions as well as :help motion for more interesting ways of
movement.

38
Help

Help
Vim has such a diverse list of commands, keyboard shortcuts, buffers, and so on. It's
impossible to remember how all of them work. In fact, it is not even useful to know all of
them. The best situation is that you know how to look for certain functionality in Vim
whenever you need it.

For example, you want to avoid having to type a long name every time, you suddenly
remember there is an abbreviations feature in Vim that'll help you do just that, but don't
remember how to use it. What do you do?

Let's look at the various ways of finding help about how to use Vim.

The :help command

The first and most important place to try to look for help is the built-in documentation and
Vim has one of the most comprehensive user manuals that I've ever seen.

In our case, just run :help abbreviation and you'll be taken to the help for abbreviations
and you can read about how to use the :ab and :iab commands.

Sometimes, it can be as simple as that. If you don't know what you're looking for, then you
can run :help user-manual and browse through the list of contents of the entire user manual
and read the chapter that you feel is relevant to what you're trying to do.

How to read the :help topic

Let us take some sample text from :help abbreviate :

:ab[breviate] [<expr>] {lhs} {rhs}

add abbreviation for {lhs} to {rhs}. If {lhs} already
existed it is replaced with the new {rhs}. {rhs} may
contain spaces.
See |:map-<expr>| for the optional <expr> argument.

Notice that there is a standard way of writing help in Vim to make it easy for us to figure out
the parts that are needed for us instead of trying to understand the whole command.

The first line explains the syntax i.e. how to use this command.

39
Help

The square brackets in :ab[breviate] indicate that the latter part of the full name is
optional. The minimum you have to type is :ab so that Vim recognizes the command. You
can also use :abb or :abbr or :abbre and so on till the full name :abbreviate . Most
people tend to use the shortest form possible.

The square brackets in [<expr>] again indicate that the 'expression' is optional.

The curly brackets in {lhs} {rhs} indicate that these are placeholders for actual arguments
to be supplied. The names are short for 'left hand side' and 'right hand side' respectively.

Following the first line is an indented paragraph that briefly explains what this command
does.

Notice the second paragraph which points you to further information. You can position the
cursor on the text between the two pipe symbols and press ctrl-] to follow the "link" to the
corresponding :help topic. To jump back, press ctrl-o .

The :helpgrep command

If you do not know what the name of the topic is, then you can search the entire
documentation for a phrase by using :helpgrep . Suppose you want to know how to look for
the beginning of a word, then just run :helpgrep beginning of a word .

You can use :cnext and :cprev to move to the next and previous part of the
documentation where that phrase occurs. Use :clist to see the whole list of all the
occurrences of the phrase.

Quick help
Copy the following text into a file in Vim and then also run it:

:let &keywordprg=':help'

Now, position your cursor anywhere on the word keywordprg and just press K . You'll be
taken to the help immediately for that word. This shortcut avoids having to type :help
keywordprg .

Mailing List

40
Help

If you are still not able to figure out what you want to do, then the next best thing is to
approach other Vim users to help you out. Don't worry, this is actually very easy and it is
amazing how other Vimmers who are willing to help you out.

Search the Vim mailing list to see if someone has already answered your question. Just go
to the Vim Group search page and then enter the keywords of your question. Most of the
times, many common questions will be already answered since this is such a high-traffic
mailing list i.e. lots and lots of people ask questions and give answers in this group.

If you cannot find any relevant answer, then post your question in the same mailing list.

Summary
There is a wealth of information on how to do things using Vim, and many Vimmers would
gladly help you out as well. The Vim community is one of the greatest strengths of the Vim
editor, so make sure to use the resources and do join the growing community as well.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing. -- Isaac Asimov

41
Editing Basics

Editing Basics
Let's learn the basic editing commands in Vim for reading/writing files, cut/copy/paste,
undo/redo and searching.

Reading and writing files

Buffers
When you edit a file, Vim brings the text in the file on the hard disk to the computer's RAM.
This means that a copy of the file is stored in the computer's memory and any changes you
make is changed in the computer's memory and immediately displayed. Once you have
finished editing the file, you can save the file which means that Vim writes back the text in
the computer's memory to the file on the hard disk. The computer memory used here to
store the text temporarily is referred to as a "buffer". Note that this same concept is the
reason why we have to "save" files in all editors or word processors that we use.

Now open up Vim, write the words Hello World and save it as the file hello.txt . If you
need to remember how to do this, please refer to the First Steps chapter.

Swap
Now you will notice that another file has been created in the same directory as this file, the
file would be named something like .hello.txt.swp . Run :swapname to find out the exact
name of the file.

What is this file? Vim maintains a backup of the buffer in a file which it saves regularly to the
hard disk so that in case something goes wrong (like a computer crash or even Vim
crashes), you have a backup of the changes you have made since you last saved the
original file. This file is called a "swap file" because Vim keeps swapping the contents of the
buffer in the computer memory with the contents of this file on the hard disk. See :help
swap-file to know more details.

Save my file
Now that the file has been loaded, let's do a minor editing. Press the ~ key to change the
case of the character on which the cursor is positioned. You will notice that Vim now marks
the file having been changed (for example a + sign shows up in the title bar of the GUI

42
Editing Basics

version of Vim). You can open up the actual file in another editor and check that it has not
changed yet i.e. Vim has only changed the buffer and not yet saved it to the hard disk.

We can write back the buffer to the original file in the hard disk by running :write .

NOTE: To make saving easier, add the following line to your vimrc file:

" To save, ctrl-s.

nmap <c-s> :w<CR>
imap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR>a

Now you can simply press ctrl-s to save the file.

Working in my directory
Vim starts up with your home directory as the default directory and all operations will be
done within that directory.

To open files located in other directories, you can use the full or relative paths such as:

:e ../tmp/test.txt
:e C:\\shopping\\monday.txt

Or you can switch Vim to that directory:

:cd ../tmp

:cd is short for 'c'hange 'd'irectory.

To find out the current directory where Vim is looking for files:

:pwd

:pwd is short for 'p'rint 'w'orking 'd'irectory.

Cut, Copy and Paste

As Sean Connery says, in the movie Finding Forrester:

No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite
with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!

43
Editing Basics

When we rewrite, we frequently rearrange the order of the paragraphs or sentences i.e. we
need to be able to cut/copy/paste the text. In Vim, we use a slightly different terminology:

Desktop world Vim world Operation

cut delete d

copy yank y

paste paste p

In normal desktop terminology, 'cut'ting text means removing the text and putting it into the
clipboard. The same operation in Vim means it deletes the text from the file buffer and stores
it in a 'register' (a part of the computer's memory). Since we can choose the register where
we can store the text, it is referred to as the "delete" operation.

Similarly, in normal desktop terminology, 'copy' text means that a copy of the text is placed
on the clipboard. Vim does the same, it "yanks" the text and places it in a register.

"Paste" means the same in both terminologies.

We have seen how you can do cut/copy/paste operations in Vim. But how do you specify
which text that these operations should work on? Well, we have already explored that in the
previous Text Objects section.

Combining the operation notation and the text object notation means we have innumerable
ways of manipulating the text. Let's see a few examples.

Write this text in Vim (exactly as shown):

This is the rthe first paragraph.

This is the second line.

This is the second paragraph.

Place the cursor at the topmost leftmost position, by pressing 1G and | that moves to the
first line and the first column respectively.

Let's see the first case: We have typed an extra 'r' which we have to remove. Press 3w to
move forward by 3 words.

Now, we need to delete one character at the current cursor position.

Note that there are two parts to this:

Operation Text Object / Motion

Delete One character at current cursor position

d l

44
Editing Basics

So, we have to just press dl and we delete one character! Notice that we can use l even
though it is a motion.

Now we notice that the whole word is redundant because we have "the" twice. Now think
carefully on what should be fastest key combination to fix this?

Take some time to think and figure this out for yourself. Take your time. Now read on.

Operation Text Object / Motion

Delete Word
d w

So, press dw and you delete a word. Voila! So simple and so beautiful. The beauty is that
such simple concepts can be combined to provide such a rich range of possibilities.

How do we achieve the same operation for lines? Well, lines are considered special in Vim
because lines are usually how we think about our text. As a shortcut, if you repeat the
operation name twice, it will operate on the line. So, dd will delete the current line and yy will
yank the current line.

Our example text in Vim should now look like this:

This is the first paragraph.

This is the second line.

This is the second paragraph.

Go to the second line by pressing j . Now press dd and the line should be deleted. You
should now see:

This is the first paragraph.

This is the second paragraph.

Let's see a bigger case: How do we yank the current paragraph?

Operation Text Object / Motion

Yank A Paragraph
y ap

So, yap will copy the current paragraph.

Now that we have done copying the text, how do we paste it? Just p it.

You should now see:

45
Editing Basics

This is the first paragraph.

This is the first paragraph.

This is the second paragraph.

Notice that the blank line is also copied when we do yap, so p adds that extra blank line as
well.

There are two types of paste that can be done exactly like the two types of inserts we have
seen before:

Key Mnemonic
p paste after current cursor position
P paste before current cursor position

Taking the idea further, we can combine these into more powerful ways.

How to swap two characters? Press xp .

x → delete one character at current cursor position

p → paste after current cursor position

How to swap two words? Press dwwP .

d → delete

w → one word

w → move to the next word

P → paste before the current cursor position

The important thing is not to learn these operations by rote. These combinations of
operations and text objects/motions should be automatic for your fingers, without you
needing to put in mental effort. This happens when you make using these a habit.

Marking your territory

You are writing, and you suddenly realize you have to change sentences in a previous
section to support what you are writing in this section. The problem is that you have to
remember where you are right now so that you can come back to it later. Can't Vim
remember it for me? This can be achieved using marks.

You can create a mark by pressing m followed by the name of the mark which is a single
character from a-zA-Z . For example, pressing ma creates the mark called 'a'.

46
Editing Basics

Pressing 'a returns the cursor to line of the mark. Pressing `a will take you to the exact
line and column of the mark.

The best part is that you can jump to this position using these marks any time thereafter.

See :help mark-motions for more details.

Time machine using undo/redo

Suppose you are rewriting a paragraph but you end up muddling up what you were trying to
rewrite and you want to go back what you had written earlier. This is where we can "undo"
what we just did. If we want to change back again to what we have now, we can "redo" the
changes that we have made. Note that a change means some change to the text, it does not
take into account cursor movements and other things not directly related to the text.

Suppose you have the text:

I have coined a phrase for myself - 'CUT to the G':

1. Concentrate
2. Understand
3. Think
4. Get Things Done

Step 4 is eventually what gets you moving, but Steps 2 and 3 are equally
important. As Abraham Lincoln once said "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my axe." And to get to this stage, you need to do
Step 1 which boils down to one thing - It's all in the mind. That's why it's so hard.

Now, start editing the first line:

1. Press S to 's'ubstitute the whole line.

2. Type the text After much thought, I have coined a new phrase to help me solidify my
approach: .

3. Press <esc> .

Now think about the change that we just did. Is the sentence better? Hmm, was the text
better before? How do we switch back and forth?

Press u to undo the last change and see what we had before. You will now see the text I
have coined a phrase for myself - 'CUT to the G': . To come back to the latest change,

press ctrl-r to now see the line After much thought, I have coined a new phrase to help
me solidify my approach: .

47
Editing Basics

It is important to note that Vim gives unlimited history of undo/redo changes, but it is usually
limited by the undolevels setting in Vim and the amount of memory in your computer.

Now, let's see some stuff that really shows off Vim's advanced undo/redo functionality, some
thing that other editors will be jealous of: Vim is not only your editor, it also acts as a time
machine.

For example, :earlier 4m will take you back by 4 minutes i.e. the state of the text 4
minutes "earlier".

The power here is that it is superior to all undoes and redoes. For example, if you make a
change, then you undo it, and then continue editing, that change is actually never retrievable
using simple u again. But it is possible in Vim using the :earlier command.

You can also go forward in time: :later 45s which will take you later by 45 seconds.

Or if you want the simpler approach of going back by 5 changes: :undo 5 .

You can view the undo tree using :undolist .

See :help :undolist for the explanation of the output from this command.

See :help undo-redo and :help usr_32.txt for more details.

A powerful search engine but not a dotcom

Vim has a powerful built-in search engine that you can use to find exactly what you are
looking for. It takes a little getting used to the power it exposes, so let's get started.

Let's come back to our familiar example:

I have coined a phrase for myself - 'CUT to the G':

1. Concentrate
2. Understand
3. Think
4. Get Things Done

Step 4 is eventually what gets you moving, but Steps 2 and 3 are equally
important. As Abraham Lincoln once said "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my axe." And to get to this stage, you need to do
Step 1 which boils down to one thing - It's all in the mind. That's why it's so hard.

48
Editing Basics

Suppose we want to search for the word "Step". In normal mode, type /Step<cr> (i.e.
/Step followed by enter key). This will take you to the first occurrence of those set of

characters. Press n to take you to the 'n'ext occurrence and N to go in the opposite
direction i.e. the previous occurrence.

What if you knew only a part of the phrase or don't know the exact spelling? Wouldn't it be
helpful if Vim could start searching as and when you type the search phrase? You can
enable this by running:

set incsearch

You can also tell Vim to ignore the case (whether lower or upper case) of the text that you
are searching for:

set ignorecase

Or you can use:

set smartcase

When you have smartcase on:

If you are searching for /step i.e. the text you enter is in lower case, then it will search
for any combination of upper and lower case text. For example, this will match all the
following four - "Step", "Stephen", "stepbrother", "misstep."
If you are searching for /Step i.e. the text you enter has an upper case, then it will
search for only text that matches the exact case. For example, it will match "Step" and
"Stephen", but not "stepbrother" or "misstep."

NOTE: I recommend that you put these two lines in your vimrc file (explained later, but
see :help vimrc-intro for a quick introduction) so that this is enabled always.

Now that we have understood the basics of searching, let's explore the real power of
searching. The first thing to note that what you provide Vim can not only be a simple phrase,
it can be a "expression". An expression allows you to specify the 'kinds' of text to search for,
not just the exact text to look.

For example, you will notice that /step will take you to steps as well as step and even
footstep if such a word is present. What if you wanted to look for the exact word step and not
when it is part of any other word? Then you can search using /\<step\> . The \< and \>
indicate the start and end positions of a "word" respectively.

49
Editing Basics

Similarly, what if you wanted to search for any number? Searching for /\d will look for a
'digit'. But a number is just a group of digits together. So we specify "one or more" digits
together as /\d\+ . If we were looking for zero or more characters, we can use the *
instead of the + .

There are a variety of such magic stuff we can use in our search patterns. See :help
pattern for details.

Summary
We have explored some of the basic editing commands that we will use in our everyday
usage of Vim. It is very important that you go through these concepts again and make them
a habit. It is not important to learn each and every option or nuances of these commands. If
you know how to use the command and know how to find out more on it based on what you
need, then you're a true Vimmer.

Now, go ahead and start editing!

50
Multiplicity

Multiplicity
In this chapter, let's explore how Vim helps us work between different parts of the file,
different files, different 'windows' and different tabs to help us to handle more simultaneously.
After all, an important part about good editing is managing files.

Multiple Sections using Folds

If you're editing a long document, wouldn't it be easier if you can "close" all sections of the
document and focus on only one at a time?

This is what we call folding in Vim.

Let us take the example where your document is structured such that each level of the text
is indented one level higher such as the following piece of text:

Book I
The Shadow of the Past
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Three is Company

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

NOTE: This text was taken from WikiQuote.

After writing this text, run :set foldmethod=indent , position your cursor on the text you want
to indent, press zc and see how the text folds up. Press zo to open the fold.

51
Multiplicity

Basic commands are zo and zc where we can open and close the fold respectively. You
can use za to 'a'lternate between opening and closing a fold respectively. You can make it
even easier by using the spacebar (in normal mode) to open and close a fold:

:nmap <space> za

Folding is a huge topic on its own with more ways of folding (manual, marker, expression)
and various ways of opening and closing hierarchies of folds, and so on. See :help
folding for details.

Multiple Buffers
Suppose you wanted to edit more than one file at a time using the same Vim, what do you
do?

Remember that files are loaded into buffers in Vim. Vim can also load multiple buffers at the
same time. So, you can have multiple files open at the same time and you can keep
switching between them.

Let's say you have two files, part1.txt and part2.txt :

part1.txt

I have coined a phrase for myself - 'CUT to the G':

1. Concentrate
2. Understand
3. Think
4. Get Things Done

part2.txt

Step 4 is eventually what gets you moving, but Steps 2 and 3 are equally important. As
Abraham Lincoln once said "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six
hours sharpening my axe." And to get to this stage, you need to do Step 1 which boils
down to one thing - It's all in the mind. That's why it's so hard.

Now, run :e part1.txt and then run :e part2.txt . Observe that you have the second file
now open for editing. How do you switch back to the first file? In this particular case, you can
just run :b 1 to switch to 'b'uffer number '1'. You can also run :e part1.txt to open the
existing buffer into view.

You can see what buffers has been loaded and correspondingly, which files are being edited
by running :buffers or a shorter form, :ls which stands for 'l'i's't buffers.

52
Multiplicity

Buffers will be automatically removed when you close Vim, so you don't have to do anything
special other than making sure you save your files. However, if you really want to remove a
buffer, for example in order to use less memory, then you can use :bd 1 to 'd'elete the
'b'uffer numbered '1', etc.

See :help buffer-list on the numerous things you can do with buffers.

Multiple Windows
We have seen how to edit multiple files at the same time, but what if we wanted to view two
different files simultaneously. For example, you want to have two different chapters of your
book open so that you can write the second chapter consistent with the wordings/description
given in the first chapter. Or you want to copy/paste some stuff from the first file to the
second file.

In the last section, we used the same "view" to edit multiple buffers. Vim calls these "views"
as windows. This term "window" should not be confused with your desktop application
window which usually means the entire application itself. Just think of 'windows' as 'views' on
different files.

Let's take the same part1.txt and part2.txt sample files used in the previous section.

First, load the part1.txt using :e part1.txt . Now, let's open a new buffer by splitting the
window to create a new window - run :new . You should now be able to do any normal
editing in the new buffer in the new window, except that you can't save the text because you
haven't associated a file name with the buffer. For that, you can use :w test.txt to save
the buffer.

53
Multiplicity

How do you switch between these two windows? Just use ctrl-w <motion key> to switch
between the windows. Motion keys can be one of h , j , k , l or even any of the arrow
keys (in this example, only up and down keys make sense). Remember that ctrl-w
operations work on 'w'indows.

As a quick shortcut, you can press ctrl-w twice i.e. ctrl-w ctrl-w to cycle between all the
open windows.

A particular situation where multiple windows are useful is when you want to view two
different parts of the same file simultaneously. Just run :sp to create a 'sp'lit window and
then you can scroll each window to a different position and continue your editing. Since they
both are "windows" to the same buffer, changes in one window will be immediately reflected
in the other window. You can also use ctrl-w s instead of :sp .

To create a vertical split, use :vsp or ctrl-w v . To close a window, just run :q .

Now that we have seen how to open and use multiple windows, let's see how to further play
around with the display.

Suppose you have two split windows but want to reverse the windows, so that you can
focus your eyes on the bottom part or top part of your computer screen, as per your
preference? Press ctrl-w r to 'r'otate the windows.
Want to move the current window to the topmost position? Press ctrl-w K .
Want to resize a window to make it smaller or larger? Run :resize 10 to make it 10
lines long display, etc.

54
Multiplicity

Want to make the current window as big as possible so that you can concentrate on it?
Press ctrl-w _ . Think of the underscore as an indication that the other windows
should be as small as possible.
Want to make the windows 'equal' in height again? Press ctrl-w = .

See :help windows on more details on what you can do with windows.

Multiple Tabs
In web browsers (such as Firefox, Google Chrome or Safari), you may have used the tabs
feature which allows you to open multiple websites in a single window so that you can switch
between them without having the headache of switching between multiple windows. Well,
tabs work exactly the same way in Vim also. Except that they are called "tab pages."

Run :tabnew to open a new tab with a new buffer (analogous to :new ). How do you switch
between the tabs? By pressing gt to 'g'o to the next 't'ab and gT to 'g'o in the opposite
direction i.e. the previous 't'ab.

I personally prefer to use the keys alt-j and alt-k for the same operations analogous to
how the j and k keys work for characters and how ctrl-w j and ctrl-w k work for
(horizontally split) windows. To enable this, add the following lines to your vimrc file:

55
Multiplicity

" Shortcuts for moving between tabs.

" Alt-j to move to the tab to the left
noremap <A-j> gT
" Alt-k to move to the tab to the right
noremap <A-k> gt

To 'c'lose a 'tab', run :tabc or :q .

You can even open text that opens in a new window to open in a new tab instead. For
example, :help tabpage opens the help in a horizontally split window. To view it in a new
tab instead, use :tab help tabpage .

If you want to reorder the tabs, use :tabmove . For example, to move the current tab to the
first position, use :tabmove 0 and so on.

See :help tabpage for more details on tab pages and the other operations that you can run,
such as :tabdo to operate on each of the tab pages which are open, and customizing the
title of the tab pages ( :help setting-guitablabel ), etc.

Summary
Vim provides a number of ways to edit multiple files at the same time - buffers, windows and
tabs. Using these features depends on your personal habit. For example, using multiple tabs
may obviate the usage of multiple windows. It's important to use the one which is most
convenient and comfortable.

56
Personal Information Management

Personal Information Management

A chapter on 'personal information management' (PIM) in a book on an editor software
seems strange, doesn't it? Well, there are lots of "professional software" that claim to do
personal information management, so let us explore why can't we use a plain text editor like
Vim for this purpose?

Personal information management is about organizing all your "information" - such as your
todo lists, diary entries, your reference material (such as important phone numbers),
scratchpad and so on. Putting all of this in one convenient location can be extremely handy,
and we will explore this using Vim and a few plugins.

I tend to think of a PIM system is best organized as a wiki. A wiki is a quick way to link
together various documents which are inter-related but are independent in their own right.
Unsurprisingly, the word 'wiki' means 'quick' in the Hawaiian language. Think of a website -
there is a home page, and there are related pages to which you see links, and each page
will have its own content but can also inter-link to other pages. Isn't this an easy way of
organizing websites? What if you could do the same for your own personal information? See
this LifeHack article 'Wikify Your Life: How to Organize Everything' on some great examples
on what you can do.

But does this really require a specialized Wiki software? What if you could do the same in
just plain text files using Vim? Let's dive in.

Installing Viki
NOTE: The $vimfiles directory corresponds to ~/.vim on Linux/Mac, C:/Documents
and Settings/<your-user-name>/vimfiles on Windows and C:Users/<your-user-

name>/vimfiles on Windows Vista. See :help vimfiles for specific details.

We're going to install Viki and its related plugins:

1. Download multvals.vim and store as $vimfiles/plugin/multvals.vim .

2. Download genutils.zip and unzip this file to $vimfiles .
3. Download Viki.zip and unzip this file to $vimfiles (make sure all the folders and files
under the 'Viki' folder name are stored directly in the $vimfiles folder)

Get Started

57
Personal Information Management

1. Open the GUI version of Vim

2. :e test.txt

3. :set filetype=viki

4. Type the following text:

[[http://deplate.sourceforge.net/Markup.html][Viki syntax]]

5. :w

6. Position your cursor on the above text and press ctrl+enter , or alternatively press
\vf .

7. You should see a web browser open up with the above website page open.

Similarly, you can write down any file name (with a valid path) - whether it is a .doc file or a
.pdf file and then you can ctrl+enter to open the file in the corresponding Word or

Acrobat Reader programs!

The idea is that you can use plain text files to hold all your thinking together and you can
ctrl+enter your way into everything else.

Now, notice that we had to type the square brackets in pairs above to identify the target of
the link and the words that describe the link. This is basically the syntax of the markup
language which we will explore next.

Markup language
The Viki syntax page (that you just opened in your web browser) explains how to write the
text to allow Viki to syntax highlight portions of your text as well as how to do the linking
between 'wiki pages' and even write Viki-specific comments.

Learning the basics of the syntax highlighting is useful because you can visually see the
parts of your text file. For example, use * List of things to do to make it a header, and
then use dashes to create a list:

* List of things to do

- Finish the blog post on Brahmagiri trek

- Fix footer bug on IONLAB website
- Buy some blank CDs
- Get motorbike serviced

Disabling CamelCase

58
Personal Information Management

Writing CamelCase can create a wiki link in Viki, but I personally dislike this. I prefer that only
explicit links like [[CamelCase]] be allowed to avoid situations where I have genuinely used
a name which uses camel case but I don't want it to be a link (for example, the word
"JavaScript"). To disable camel-case syntax, put let g:vikiNameTypes = "sSeuix" in your
~/.vimrc file.

Getting Things Done

One of the major reasons for creating this 'viki' for myself is to maintain a 'Getting Things
Done' system.

Getting Things Done ("GTD") is a system devised by David Allen to help manage your 'stuff'
- which could mean anything from your career plans to the list of chores you have to do
today.

From David Allen's book:

"Get everything out of your head. Make decisions about actions required on stuff when
it shows up - not when it blows up. Organize reminders of your projects and the next
actions on them in appropriate categories. Keep your system current, complete, and
reviewed sufficiently to trust your intuitive choices about what you're doing (and not
doing) at any time."

The GTD system basically consists of organizing your information into certain pages/folders:

1. Collection Basket
2. Projects List
3. Next Actions
4. Calendar
5. Someday/Maybe
6. Reference Material
7. Waiting For

I created a viki to match this system by using the following method:

1. First, create a StartPage which is literally the start page to your personal organization
system (hereby referred to as simply "your viki").
2. Then, create a list of main sections of your viki:

59
Personal Information Management

* Getting Things Done

1. [[Collect][In Basket]]
2. [[Project][Projects List]]
3. [[NextActions][Next Actions]]
4. [[Calendar]]
5. [[SomedayMaybe][Someday/Maybe]]
6. [[Reference][Reference Material]]
7. [[Waiting][Waiting For]]

3. Similarly, go to as much depth as you want, for example creating a

[[Reference.Career]] to jot down your career plans, and [[Project.TopSecret]] to

gather thoughts on your next project, and so on.

4. Every time you want to jot down something, use the [[Collect]] page and then
process, organize, review and finally actually do your next-physical-actions.
5. It takes a while to get accustomed to using this system, but once you are comfortable,
you can achieve clarity of mind, confidence that you're taking care of all the factors in
your life, and most importantly, a sense of direction in knowing what are the important
things in your life.

Notice how we are managing an entire system using just plain text!

Summary
We have just explored how Vim can help you in creating a personal information
management system for yourself. It's fascinating how we don't need a complicated software
for such a system, just plain text files and Vim will do.

See Abhijit Nadgouda's article on using Vim as a personal wiki for an alternative way of
achieving the same using built-in Vim functionality.

60
Scripting

Scripting
If you want to customize any software, most likely you will change the various settings in the
software to suit your taste and needs. What if you wanted to do more than that? For
example, to check for conditions such as if GUI version, then use this colorscheme else
use this colorscheme ? This is where "scripting" comes in. Scripting basically means using a

language where you can specify conditions and actions put together into 'scripts'.

There are two approaches to scripting in Vim - using the built-in Vim scripting language, or
using a full-fledged programming language such as Python or Perl which have access to the
Vim internals via modules (provided that Vim has been compiled with these options
enabled).

This chapter requires some knowledge of programming. If you have no prior programming
experience, you will still be able to understand although it might seem terse. If you wish to
learn programming, please refer my other free book A Byte of Python.

There are two ways of creating reusable functionality in Vim - using macros and writing
scripts.

Macros
Using macros, we can record sequences of commands and then replay it in different
contexts.

For example, suppose you had some text like this:

tansen is the singer

daswant is the painter
todarmal is the financial wizard
abul fazl is the historian
birbal is the wazir

There are many things to correct here:

1. Change the first letter of the sentence to upper case.

2. Change 'is' to 'was'.
3. Change 'the' to 'a'.
4. End the sentence with "in Akbar's court."

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Scripting

One way would be to use a series of substitute commands, such as :s/^\\w/\\u\\0/ but
this would require 4 substitution commands and it might not be simple if the substitute
command changes parts of the text which we do not want to be changed.

A better way would be to use macros.

1. Position your cursor on the first letter of the first line: tansen is the singer
2. Type qa in normal mode to start recording the macro named as a .
3. Type gUl to switch the first letter to upper case.
4. Type w to move to the next word.
5. Type cw to change the word.
6. Type was .
7. Press <Esc> .
8. Type w to move to the next word.
9. Type cw to change the word.
10. Type a .
11. Press <Esc> .
12. Type A to insert text at the end of the line.
13. Type in Akbar's court .
14. Press <Esc> .
15. Type q to stop recording the macro.

That looks like a long procedure, but sometimes, this is much easier to do than cook up
some complicated substitute commands!

At the end of the procedure, the line should look like this:

Tansen was a singer in Akbar's court.

Great. Now, let's move on to apply this to the other lines. Just move to the first character of
the second line and press @a . Voila, the line should change to:

Daswant was a painter in Akbar's court.

This demonstrates that macros can record complicated operations and can be easily
replayed. This helps the user to replay complicated editing in multiple places. This is one
type of reusing the manipulations you can do to the text. Next, we will see more formal ways
of manipulating the text.

NOTE: If you want to simply repeat the last action and not a sequence of actions, you
do not have to use macros, just press . (dot).

62
Scripting

Basics of Scripting
Vim has a built-in scripting language using which you can write your own scripts to take
decisions, "do" stuff, and manipulate the text.

Actions
How do you change the theme i.e. colors used by Vim? Just run:

:colorscheme desert

Here, I am using the 'desert' color scheme, which happens to be my favorite. You can view
the other schemes available by typing :colorscheme and then pressing <tab> key to cycle
through the available schemes.

What if you wanted to know how many characters are in the current line?

:echo strlen(getline("."))

Notice the names 'strlen' and 'getline'. These are "functions". Functions are pieces of scripts
already written and have been given a name so that we can use them again and again. For
example, the getline function fetches a line and we are indicating which line by the . (dot)
which means the current line. We are passing the result returned by the getline function to
the strlen function which counts the number of characters in the text and then we are
passing the result returned by the strlen function to the :echo command which simply
displays the result. Notice how the information flows in this command.

The strlen(getline(".")) is called an expression. We can store the results of such

expressions by using variables. Variables do what the name suggests - they are names
pointing to values and the value can be anything i.e. it can vary. For example, we can store
the length as:

:let len = strlen(getline("."))

:echo "We have" len "characters in this line."

When you run this line on the second line above in this text, you will get the following output:

We have 46 characters in this line.

Notice how we can use variables in other 'expressions'. The possibilities of you can achieve
with the help of these variables, expressions and commands are endless.

63
Scripting

Vim has many types of variables available via prefixes such as $ for environment
variables, & for options, and @ for registers:

:echo $HOME
:echo &filetype
:echo @a

See :help function-list for a huge list of functions available.

You can create your own functions as well:

:function CurrentLineLength()
: let len = strlen(getline("."))
: return len
:endfunction

Now position your cursor on any line and run the following command:

:echo CurrentLineLength()

You should see a number printed.

Function names have to start with an upper case. This is to differentiate that built-in
functions start with a lower case and user-defined functions start with an upper case.

f you want to simply "call" a function to run but not display the contents, you can use :call
CurrentLineLength()

Decisions
Suppose you want to display a different color schemes based on whether Vim is running in
the terminal or is running as a GUI i.e. you need the script to take decisions. Then, you can
use:

:if has("gui_running")
: colorscheme desert
:else
: colorscheme darkblue
:endif

How It Works:

has() is a function which is used to determine if a specified feature is supported in Vim

64
Scripting

installed on the current computer. See :help feature-list to see what kind of features
are available in Vim.
The if statement checks the given condition. If the condition is satisfied, we take
certain actions. "Else", we take the alternative action.
Note that an if statement should have a matching endif .
There is elseif also available, if you want to chain together multiple conditions and
actions.

The looping statements 'for' and 'while' are also available in Vim:

:let i = 0
:while i < 5
: echo i
: let i += 1
:endwhile

Output:

0
1
2
3
4

Using Vim's built-in functions, the same can also be written as:

:for i in range(5)
: echo i
:endfor

range() is a built-in function used to generate a range of numbers. See :help range()

for details.
The continue and break statements are also available.

Data Structures
Vim scripting also has support for lists and dictionaries. Using these, you can build up
complicated data structures and programs.

65
Scripting

:let fruits = ['apple', 'mango', 'coconut']

:echo fruits[0]
" apple

:echo len(fruits)
" 3

:call remove(fruits, 0)
:echo fruits
" ['mango', 'coconut']

:call sort(fruits)
:echo fruits
" ['coconut', 'mango']

:for fruit in fruits

: echo "I like" fruit
:endfor
" I like coconut
" I like mango

There are many functions available - see 'List manipulation' and 'Dictionary manipulation'
sections in :help function-list .

Writing a Vim script

We will now write a Vim script that can be loaded into Vim and then we can call its
functionality whenever required. This is different from writing the script inline and running
immediately as we have done all along.

Let us tackle a simple problem - how about capitalizing the first letter of each word in a
selected range of lines? The use case is simple - When I write headings in a text document,
they look better if they are capitalized, but I'm too lazy to do it myself. So, I can write the text
in lower case, and then simply call the function to capitalize.

We will start with the basic template script. Save the following script as the file capitalize.vim:

66
Scripting

" Vim global plugin for capitalizing first letter of each word
" in the current line.
" Last Change: 2008-11-21 Fri 08:23 AM IST
" Maintainer: www.swaroopch.com/contact/
" License: www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

if exists("loaded_capitalize")
finish
endif
let loaded_capitalize = 1

" TODO : The real functionality goes in here.

How It Works:

The first line of the file should be a comment explaining what the file is about.
There are 2-3 standard headers mentioned regarding the file such as 'Last Changed:'
which explains how old the script is, the 'Maintainer:' info so that users of the script can
contact the maintainer of the script regarding any problems or maybe even a note of
thanks.
The 'License:' header is optional, but highly recommended. A Vim script or plugin that
you write may be useful for many other people as well, so you can specify a license for
the script. Consequently, other people can improve your work and that it will in turn
benefit you as well.
A script may be loaded multiple times. For example, if you open two different files in the
same Vim instance and both of them are .html files, then Vim opens the HTML syntax
highlighting script for both of the files. To avoid running the same script twice and
redefining things twice, we use a safeguard by checking for existence of the name
'loaded_capitalize' and closing if the script has been already loaded.

Now, let us proceed to write the actual functionality.

We can define a function to perform the transformation - capitalize the first letter of each
word, so we can call the function as Capitalize() . Since the function is going to work on a
range, we can specify that the function works on a range of lines.

67
Scripting

" Vim global plugin for capitalizing first letter of each word
" in the current line
" Last Change: 2008-11-21 Fri 08:23 AM IST
" Maintainer: www.swaroopch.com/contact/
" License: www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

" Make sure we run only once

if exists("loaded_capitalize") finish
endif
let loaded_capitalize = 1

" Capitalize the first letter of each word

function Capitalize() range
for line_number in range(a:firstline, a:lastline)
let line_content = getline(line_number)
" Luckily, the Vim manual had the solution already!
" Refer ":help s%" and see 'Examples' section
let line_content = substitute(line_content, "\\w\\+", "\\u\\0", "g")
call setline(line_number, line_content)
endfor
endfunction

How It Works:

The a:firstline and a:lastline represent the arguments to the function with
correspond to the start and end of the range of lines respectively.
We use a 'for' loop to process each line (fetched using getline() ) in the range.
We use the substitute() function to perform a regular expression search-and-replace
on the string. Here we are specifying the function to look for words which is indicated by
\\w\\+ which means a word (i.e. a continuous set of characters that are part of words).

Once such words are found, they are to be converted using \\u\\0 - the \\u
indicates that the first character following this sequence should be converted to upper
case. The \\0 indicates the match found by the substitute() function which
corresponds to the words. In effect, we are converting the first letter of each word to
upper case.
We call the setline() function to replace the line in Vim with the modified string.

To run this command:

1. Open Vim and enter some random text such as 'this is a test'.
2. Run :source capitalize.vim - this 'sources' the file as if the commands were run in Vim
inline as we have done before.
3. Run :call Capitalize() .
4. The line should now read 'This Is A Test'.

68
Scripting

Running :call Capitalize() every time appears to be tedious, so we can assign a

keyboard shortcut using leaders:

" Vim global plugin for capitalizing first letter of each word
" in the current line
" Last Change: 2008-11-21 Fri 08:23 AM IST
" Maintainer: www.swaroopch.com/contact/
" License: www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

" Make sure we run only once

if exists("loaded_capitalize")
finish
endif
let loaded_capitalize = 1

" Refer ':help using-<Plug>'

if !hasmapto('<Plug>Capitalize')
map <unique> <Leader>c <Plug>Capitalize
endif
noremap <unique> <script> <Plug>Capitalize <SID>Capitalize
noremap <SID>Capitalize :call <SID>Capitalize()<CR>

" Capitalize the first letter of each word

function s:Capitalize() range
for line_number in range(a:firstline, a:lastline)
let line_content = getline(line_number)
" Luckily, the Vim manual had the solution already!
" Refer ":help s%" and see 'Examples' section
let line_content = substitute(line_content, "\\w\\+", "\\u\\0", "g")
call setline(line_number, line_content)
endfor
endfunction

We have changed the name of the function from simply Capitalize to s:Capitalize -
this is to indicate that the function is local to the script that it is defined in, and it
shouldn't be available globally because we want to avoid interfering with other scripts.
We use the map command to define a shortcut.
The <Leader> key is usually backslash, \ .
We are now mapping <Leader>c (i.e. the leader key followed by the 'c' key) to some
functionality.
We are using <Plug>Capitalize to indicate the Capitalize() function described within
a plugin i.e. our own script.
Every script has an ID, which is indicated by <SID> . So, we can map the command
<SID>Capitalize to a call of the local function Capitalize() .

So, now repeat the same steps mentioned previously to test this script, but you can now run
\c to capitalize the line(s) instead of running :call Capitalize() .

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Scripting

This last set of steps may seem complicated, but it just goes to show that there's a wealth of
possibilities in creating Vim scripts and they can do complex stuff.

If something does go wrong in your scripting, you can use v:errmsg to see the last error
message which may give you clues to figure out what went wrong.

Note that you can use :help to find help on everything we have discussed above, from
:help \w to :help setline() .

Using external programming languages

Many people would not like to spend the time in learning Vim's scripting language and may
prefer to use a programming language they already know and write plugins for Vim in that
language. This is possible because Vim supports writing plugins in Python, Perl, Ruby and
many other languages.

In this chapter, we will look at a simple plugin using the Python programming language, but
we can easily use any other supported language as well.

As mentioned earlier, if you are interested in learning the Python language, you might be
interested in my other free book A Byte of Python.

First, we have to test if the support for the Python programming language is present.

:echo has("python")

If this returns 1 , then we are good to go, otherwise you might want to install Python on
your machine and try again.

Suppose you are writing a blog post. A blogger usually wants to get as many people to read
his/her blog as possible. One of the ways people find such blog posts is by querying a
search engine. So, if you're going to write on a topic (say 'C V Raman', the famous Indian
physicist who has won a Nobel Prize for his work on the scattering of light), you might want
to use important phrases that helps more people find your blog when they search for this
topic. For example, if people are searching for 'c v raman', they might also search for the
'raman effect', so you may want to mention that in your blog post or article.

How do we find such related phrases? It turns out that the solution is quite simple, thanks to
Yahoo! Search.

First, let us figure out how to use Python to access the current text, which we will use to
generate the related phrases.

70
Scripting

" Vim plugin for looking up popular search queries related

" to the current line
" Last Updated: 2008-11-21 Fri 08:36 AM IST
" Maintainer: www.swaroopch.com/contact/
" License: www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

" Make sure we run only once

if exists("loaded_related")
finish
endif
let loaded_related = 1

" Look up Yahoo Search and show results to the user

function Related()
python <<EOF

import vim

print 'Length of the current line is', len(vim.current.line)

EOF
endfunction

The main approach to writing plugins in interfaced languages is same as that for the built-in
scripting language.

The key difference is that we have to pass on the code that we have written in the Python
language to the Python interpreter. This is achieved by using the EOF as shown above - all
the text from the python <<EOF command to the subsequent EOF is passed to the Python
interpreter.

You can test this program, by opening Vim again separately and running :source
related.vim , and then run :call Related() . This should display something like Length of

the current line is 54 .

Now, let us get down the actual functionality of the program. Yahoo! Search has something
called a RelatedSuggestion query which we can access using a web service. This web
service can be accessed by using a Python API provided by Yahoo! Search pYsearch:

71
Scripting

" Vim plugin for looking up popular search queries related

" to the current line
" Last Updated: 2008-11-21 Fri 08:36 AM IST
" Maintainer: www.swaroopch.com/contact/
" License: www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

" Make sure we run only once

if exists("loaded_related")
finish
endif
let loaded_related = 1

" Look up Yahoo Search and show results to the user

function Related()
python <<EOF

import vim

from yahoo.search.web import RelatedSuggestion

search = RelatedSuggestion(app_id='vimsearch', query=vim.current.line)

results = search.parse_results()

msg = 'Related popular searches are:\n'

i= 1
for result in results:
msg += '%d. %s\n' % (i, result)
i += 1
print msg

EOF
endfunction

Notice that we use the current line in Vim as the current text we are interested in, you can
change this to any text that you want, such as the current word, etc.

We use the yahoo.search.web.RelatedSuggestion class to query Yahoo! Search for phrases

related to the query that we specify. We get back the results by calling parse_results() on
the result object. We then loop over the results and display it to the user.

1. Run :source related.vim

2. Type the text c v raman .
3. Run :call Related()
4. The output should look something like this:

72
Scripting

Related popular searches are:

1. raman effect
2. c v raman india
3. raman research institute
4. chandrasekhara venkata raman

Summary
We have explored scripting using the Vim's own scripting language as well as using external
scripting/programming languages. This is important because the functionality of Vim can be
extended in infinite ways.

See :help eval , :help python-commands , :help perl-using and :help ruby-commands for
details.

To dive deep into this topic, see Learn VimScript The Hard Way by Steve Losh.

73
Plugins

Plugins
As we have seen in the previous chapter, we can write scripts to extend the existing
functionality of Vim to do more stuff. We call these scripts which extend or add functionality
as "plugins."

There are various kinds of plugins that can be written:

vimrc
global plugin
filetype plugin
syntax highlighting plugin
compiler plugin

Not only can you write your own plugins but also download and use plugins written by
others.

Customization using vimrc

When I install a new Linux distribution or reinstall Windows, the first thing I do after installing
Vim is fetch my latest vimrc file from my backups, and then start using Vim. Why is this
important? Because the vimrc file contains various customizations/settings I like which
makes Vim more useful and comfortable for me.

There are two files you can create to customize Vim to your taste:

1. vimrc - for general customizations

2. gvimrc - for GUI specific customizations

These are stored as:

%HOME%/_vimrc and %HOME%/_gvimrc on Windows

$HOME/.vimrc and $HOME/.gvimrc on Linux/BSD/Mac OS X

See :help vimrc on the exact location on your system.

These vimrc and gvimrc files can contain any Vim commands. The convention followed is to
use only simple settings in the vimrc files, and advanced stuff are sourced from plugins.

For example, here's a portion of my vimrc file:

" My Vimrc file

" Maintainer: www.swaroopch.com/contact/

74
Plugins

" Reference: Initially based on http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm/docs/vim-guide/

" License: www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

" Use Vim settings, rather then Vi settings (much better!).

" This must be first, because it changes other options as a side effect.
set nocompatible

" Enable syntax highlighting.

syntax on

" Automatically indent when adding a curly bracket, etc.

set smartindent

" Tabs should be converted to a group of 4 spaces.

" This is the official Python convention
" http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
" I didn't find a good reason to not use it everywhere.
set shiftwidth=4
set tabstop=4
set expandtab
set smarttab

" Minimal number of screen lines to keep above and below the cursor.
set scrolloff=999

" Use UTF-8.

set encoding=utf-8

" Set color scheme that I like.

if has("gui_running")
colorscheme desert
else
colorscheme darkblue
endif

" Status line

set laststatus=2
set statusline=
set statusline+=%-3.3n\ " buffer number
set statusline+=%f\ " filename
set statusline+=%h%m%r%w " status flags
set statusline+=\[%{strlen(&ft)?&ft:'none'}] " file type
set statusline+=%= " right align remainder
set statusline+=0x%-8B " character value
set statusline+=%-14(%l,%c%V%) " line, character
set statusline+=%<%P " file position

" Show line number, cursor position.

set ruler

" Display incomplete commands.

set showcmd

75
Plugins

" To insert timestamp, press F3.

nmap <F3> a<C-R>=strftime("%Y-%m-%d %a %I:%M %p")<CR><Esc>
imap <F3> <C-R>=strftime("%Y-%m-%d %a %I:%M %p")<CR>

" To save, press ctrl-s.

nmap <c-s> :w<CR>
imap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR>a

" Search as you type.

set incsearch

" Ignore case when searching.

set ignorecase

" Show autocomplete menus.

set wildmenu

" Show editing mode

set showmode

" Error bells are displayed visually.

set visualbell

Notice that these commands are not prefixed by colon. The colon is optional when writing
scripts in files because it assumes they are normal mode commands.

If you want to learn detailed usage of each setting mentioned above, refer :help .

A portion of my gvimrc file is:

" Size of GVim window

set lines=35 columns=99

" Don't display the menu or toolbar. Just the screen.

set guioptions-=m
set guioptions-=T

" Font.
if has('win32') || has('win64')
" set guifont=Monaco:h16
" http://jeffmilner.com/index.php/2005/07/30/windows-vista-fonts-now-available/
set guifont=Consolas:h12:cANSI
elseif has('unix')
let &guifont="Monospace 10"
endif

There are various example vimrc files out there that you should definitely take a look at and
learn the various kinds of customizations that can be done, then pick the ones you like and
put it in your own vimrc.

76
Plugins

A few good ones that I have found in the past are:

Steve Francia's vim distribution

Steve Losh's vim config
bling's dotvim
Janus

It is a known fact that a person's vimrc usually reflects how long that person has been using
Vim.

Global plugin
Global plugins can be used to provide global/generic functionality.

Global plugins can be stored in two places:

1. $VIMRUNTIME/plugin/ for standard plugins supplied by Vim during its installation

2. To install your own plugins or plugins that you have download from somewhere, you can
use your own plugin directory:

$HOME/.vim/plugin/ on Linux/BSD/Mac OS X

%HOME%/vimfiles/plugin/ on Windows

See :help runtimepath for details on your plugin directories.

Let's see how to use a plugin.

A useful plugin to have is highlight_current_line.vim by Ansuman Mohanty which does

exactly as the name suggests. Download the latest version of the file
highlight_current_line.vim and put it in your plugin directory (as mentioned above). Now,

restart Vim and open any file. Notice how the current line is highlighted compared to the
other lines in the file.

But what if you don't like it? Just delete the highlight_current_line.vim file and restart Vim.

Similarly, we can install our own related.vim or capitalize.vim from the Scripting chapter
into our plugin directory, and this avoids us the trouble of having to use :source every time.
Ultimately, any kind of Vim plugin that you write should end up somewhere in your
.vim/vimfiles plugin directory.

Filetype plugin

77
Plugins

Filetype plugins are written to work on certain kinds of files. For example, programs written
in the C programming language can have their own style of indentation, folding, syntax
highlighting and even error display. These plugins are not general purpose, they work for
these specific filetypes.

Using a filetype plugin

Let's try a filetype plugin for XML. XML is a declarative language that uses tags to describe
the structure of the document itself. For example, if you have a text like this:

Iron Gods
---------

Ashok Banker's next book immediately following the Ramayana is said to be a novel
tentatively titled "Iron Gods" scheduled to be published in 2007. A contemporary novel,
it is an epic hard science fiction story about a war between the gods of different faiths.
Weary of the constant infighting between religious sects and their deities, God (aka
Allah, Yahweh, brahman, or whatever one chooses to call the Supreme Deity) wishes to
destroy creation altogether.

A representation of prophets and holy warriors led by Ganesa, the elephant-headed

Hindu deity, randomly picks a sample of mortals, five of whom are the main
protagonists of the book--an American Catholic, an Indian Hindu, a Pakistani Muslim, a
Japanese Buddhist, and a Japanese Shinto follower. The mortal sampling, called a
'Palimpsest' is ferried aboard a vast Dyson's Sphere artifact termed The Jewel, which is
built around the sun itself, contains retransplanted cities and landscapes brought from
multiple parallel Earths and is the size of 12,000 Earths. It is also a spaceship travelling
to the end of creation, where the Palimpsest is to present itself before God to plead
clemency for all creation.

Meanwhile, it is upto the five protagonists, aided by Ganesa and a few concerned
individuals, including Lucifer Morningstar, Ali Abu Tarab, King David and his son
Solomon, and others, to bring about peace among the myriad warring faiths. The
question is whether or not they can do so before the audience with God, and if they can
do so peacefully--for pressure is mounting to wage one final War of Wars to end all war
itself.

(Excerpt taken from Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License)

It can be written in XML form (specifically, in 'DocBook XML' format) as:

78
Plugins

79
A Programmer's Editor

Programmers Editor

Introduction
Vim tends to be heavily used by programmers. The features, ease of use, and flexibility that
Vim provide make it a good choice for people who write a lot of code. This should not seem
surprising since writing code involves a lot of editing.

Let me reiterate that typing skills are critical for a programmer. If our earlier discussion didn't
convince you, we hope this article by Jeff Atwood, titled 'We Are Typists First, Programmers
Second', will convince you.

If you do not have programming experience, you can skip this chapter.

For those who love programming, let's dive in and see how Vim can help you in writing code.

Simple stuff
The simplest feature of Vim that you can use to help you in writing code is syntax
highlighting. This allows you to visualize, i.e. "see," your code, which helps you in reading
and writing your code faster and helps avoid making obvious mistakes.

Syntax highlighting
Suppose you are editing a vim syntax file; run :set filetype=vim and see how Vim adds
color. Similarly, if you are editing a Python file, run :set filetype=python .

To see the list of language types available, check the $VIMRUNTIME/syntax/ directory.

Tip

If you want the power of syntax highlighting for any Unix shell output, just pipe it t
o Vim. For example, `svn diff | vim -R -`. Notice the dash in the end which tells Vim
that it should read text from its standard input.

Smart indentation

80
A Programmer's Editor

An experienced programmer's code is usually indented properly, which makes the code look
"uniform" and the structure of the code more visually apparent. Vim can help by doing the
indentation for you so that you can concentrate on the actual code.

If you indent a particular line and want the lines following it to be also indented to the same
level, then you can use the :set autoindent setting.

If you start a new block of statements and want the next line to be automatically indented to
the next level, then you can use the :set smartindent setting. Note that the behavior of this
setting is dependent on the particular programming language being used.

Bounce
If the programming language of your choice uses curly brackets to demarcate blocks of
statements, place your cursor on one of the curly brackets, and press the % key to jump to
the corresponding curly bracket. This bounce key allows you to jump between the start and
end of a block quickly.

Shell commands
You can run a shell command from within Vim using the :! command.

For example, if the date command is available on your operating system, run :!date and
you should see the current date and time printed out.

This is useful in situations where you want to check something with the file system. For
example, you can quickly check which files are in the current directory using :!ls or
:!dir and so on.

If you want access to a full-fledged shell, run :sh .

We can use this facility to run external filters for the text being edited. For example, if you
have a bunch of lines you want to sort, then you can run :%!sort . This passes the current
text to the sort command in the shell and then the output of that command replaces the
current content of the file.

Jumping around
There are many ways of jumping around the code.

Position your cursor on a filename in the code and then press gf to open the file.
Position your cursor on a variable name and press gd to move the local definition of
the variable name. gD achieves the same for the global declaration by searching from

81
A Programmer's Editor

the start of the file.

Use ]] to move to the next { in the first column. There are many similar motions - see
:help object-motions for details.

See :help 29.3 , :help 29.4 , and :help 29.5 for more such commands. For
example, [I will display all lines that contain they keyword under the cursor!

Browsing parts of the code

File system
Use :Vex or :Sex to browse the file system within Vim and subsequently open the
required files.

ctags
We have seen how to achieve simple movements within the same file, but what if we want to
move between different files and have cross-references between files? We can use tags to
achieve this.

For simple browsing of the file, we can use the taglist.vim plugin.

1. Install the Exuberant ctags program.

2. Install the taglist.vim plugin. Refer the "install details" on the script page.
3. Run :TlistToggle to open the taglist window. Voila, now you can browse through parts
of your program such as macros, typedefs, variables and functions.
4. You can use :tag foo to jump to the definition of foo.
5. Position your cursor on any symbol and press ctrl-] to jump to the definition of that
symbol.
Press ctrl-t to return to the previous code you were reading.
6. Use ctrl-w ] to jump to the definition of the symbol in a split window.
7. Use :tnext , :tprev , :tfirst , :tlast to move between matching tags.

Note that exuberant Ctags supports 33 programming languages as of this writing, and it can
easily be extended for other languages.

See :help taglist-intro for details.

cscope
To be able to jump to definitions across files, we need a program like cscope . However, as
the name suggests, this particular program works only for the C programming language.

82
A Programmer's Editor

1. Install cscope. Refer :help cscope-info and :help cscope-win32 regarding installation.
2. Copy cscope_maps.vim to your ~/.vim/plugin/ directory.
3. Switch to your source code directory and run cscope -R -b to 'b'uild the database
'r'ecursively for all subdirectories.
4. Restart Vim and open a source code file.
5. Run :cscope show to confirm that there is a cscope connection created.

6. Run :cscope find symbol foo to locate the symbol foo . You can shorten this
command to :cs f s foo .

You can also:

* Find this definition - `:cs f g`

* Find functions called by this function - `:cs f d`
* Find functions calling this function - `:cs f c`
* Find this text string - `:cs f t`
* Find this egrep pattern - `:cs f e`

See :help cscope-suggestions for suggested usage of cscope with Vim.

Also, the Source Code Obedience plugin is worth checking out as it provides easy shortcut
keys on top of cscope/ctags.

While we are on the subject of C programming language, the c.vim plugin can be quite
handy.

Compiling
We have already seen in the previous chapter regarding :make for the programs we are
writing, so we won't repeat it here.

Easy writing

Omnicompletion
One of the most-requested features which was added in Vim 7 is "omnicompletion" where
the text can be auto-completed based on the current context. For example, if you are using a
long variable name and you are using the name repeatedly, you can use a keyboard
shortcut to ask Vim to auto-complete and it'll figure out the rest.

83
A Programmer's Editor

Vim accomplishes this via ftplugins, specifically the ones by the name
ftplugin/<language>complete.vim such as pythoncomplete.vim .

Let's start the example with a simple Python program:

def hello():
print 'hello world'

def helpme():
print 'help yourself'

After typing this program, start a new line in the same file, type 'he' and press ctrl-x ctrl-
o which will show you suggestions for the autocompletion.

If you get an error like E764: Option 'omnifunc' is not set , then run :runtime!
autoload/pythoncomplete.vim to load the omnicompletion plugin.

To avoid doing this every time, you can add the following line to your ~/.vimrc:

autocmd FileType python runtime! autoload/pythoncomplete.vim

Vim automatically uses the first suggestion, you can change to the next or previous selection
using ctrl-n and ctrl-p respectively.

In case you want to abort using the omnicompletion, simply press esc .

Refer :help new-omni-completion for details on what languages are supported (C, HTML,
JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, SQL, XML, ...) as well as how to create your own
omnicompletion scripts.

Note

If you are more comfortable in using the arrow keys to select your choice from the omn
icompletion list, see [Vim Tip 1228](http://www.vim.org/tips/tip.php?tip_id=1228) on h
ow to enable that.

I prefer to use a simple ctrl-space instead of the unwieldy ctrl-x ctrl-o key
combination. To achieve this, put this in your vimrc :

imap <c-space> <c-x><c-o>

Relatedly, the PySmell plugin may be of help to Vim users who code in Python.

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A Programmer's Editor

Using Snippets
Code snippets are small pieces of code that you repetitively tend to write. Like all good lazy
programmers, you can use a plugin that helps you to do that. In our case, we use the
amazing SnippetsEmu plugin.

1. Download the snippetsEmu plugin.

2. Create your ~/.vim/after/ directory if it doesn't already exist.
3. Start Vim by providing this plugin name on the command line. For example, start Vim as
gvim snippy_bundles.vba

4. Run :source % . The 'vimball' will now unpack and store the many files in the
appropriate directories.
5. Repeat the same process for snippy_plugin.vba

Now, let's try using this plugin.

1. Open a new file called, say, test.py .

2. Press the keys d , e , f and then <tab> .
3. Voila! See, how snippetsEmu has created a structure of your function already. You
should now see this in your file:

def <{fname}>(<{args}>):
"""
<{}>
<{args}>"""
<{pass}>
<{}>

Note

In case you see `def<tab>` and nothing else happened, then perhaps the snippets plugin
is not loaded. Run `:runtime! ftplugin/python_snippets.vim` and see if that helps.

1. Your cursor is now positioned on the function name i.e. fname .

2. Type the function name, say, test .
3. Press <tab> and the cursor is automatically moved to the arguments. Tab again to
move to the next item to be filled.
4. Now enter a comment: Just say Hi
5. Tab again and type print 'Hello World'
6. Press <tab>
7. Your program is complete!

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A Programmer's Editor

You should now see:

def test():
"""
Just say Hi
"""
print 'Hello World'

The best part is that SnippetsEmu enables a standard convention to be followed and that
nobody in the team 'forgets' it.

Creating Snippets
Let's now see how to create our own snippets.

Let us consider the case where I tend to repeatedly write the following kind of code in
ActionScript3:

private var _foo:Object;

public function get foo():Object
{
return _foo;
}
public function set foo(value:Object)
{
_foo = value;
}

This is a simple getter/setter combination using a backing variable. The problem is that's an
awful lot of boilerplate code to write repeatedly. Let's see how to automate this.

The SnippetsEmu language snippets plugins assume st as the start tag and et as the
end tag. These are the same arrow-type symbols you see in-between which we enter our
code.

Let's start with a simple example.

exec "Snippet pubfun public function

".st.et.":".st.et."<CR>{<CR>".st.et."<CR>}<CR>"

Add the above line to your ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/actionscript_snippets.vim .

Now open a new file, say, test.as and then type pubfun and press <tab> and see it
expanded to:

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A Programmer's Editor

public function <{}>:<{}>

{

The cursor will be positioned for the function name, tab to enter the return type of the
function, tab again to type the body of the function.

Going back to our original problem, here's what I came up with:

exec "Snippet getset private var _".st."name".et.";<CR><CR>public

function get ".st."name".et."():".st."type".et."<CR>{<CR><tab>return
_".st."name".et.";<CR>}<CR><CR>public function set
".st."name".et."(value:".st."type".et.")<CR>{<CR><tab>_".st."name".et."
= value;<CR>}<CR>"

Note

All snippets for this plugin must be entered on a single line. It is a technical limit
ation.

Follow the same procedure above to use this new snippet:

1. Add this line to your ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/actionscript_snippets.vim .

2. Open a new file such as test.as .
3. Type getset and press <tab> and you will see this:

private var _<{name}>;

public function get <{name}>():<{type}>

{
return _<{name}>;
}

public function set <{name}>(value:<{type}>)

{
_<{name}> = value;
}

1. Type color and press <tab> . Notice that the variable name color is replaced
everywhere.
2. Type Number and press <tab> . The code now looks like this:

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A Programmer's Editor

private var _color;

public function get color():Number

{
return _color;
}

public function set color(value:Number)

{
_color = value;
}

Notice how many keystrokes we have eliminated! We have done away with typing
approximately 11 lines of repetitive code with a single Vim script line.

We can keep adding such snippets to make coding lazier and to help us concentrate on the
real work in the software.

See :help snippets_emu.txt for more details (this help file will be available only after you
install the plugin).

IDE
Vim can be actually used as an IDE with the help of a few plugins.

Project plugin
The Project plugin is used to create a Project-manager kind of usage to Vim.

1. Download the project plugin.

2. Unarchive it to your ~/.vim/ directory.
3. Run :helptags ~/.vim/doc/ .
4. Download Vim source code from http://www.vim.org/subversion.php
5. Run :Project . A sidebar will open up in the left which will act as your 'project window'.
6. Run \\c (backslash followed by 'c')
7. Give answers for the following options:
Name of entry, say 'vim7_src'
Directory, say C:\\repo\\vim7\\src\\
CD option, same as directory above
Filter option, say *.h *.c
8. You will see the sidebar filled up with the list of files that match the filter in the specified
directory.
9. Use the arrow keys or j/k keys to move up and down the list of files, and press the

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A Programmer's Editor

enter key to open the file in the main window.

This gives you the familiar IDE-kind of interface, the good thing is that there are no fancy
configuration files or crufty path setups in IDEs which usually have issues always. The
Project plugin's functionality is simple and straightforward.

You can use the standard fold commands to open and close the projects and their details.

You can also run scripts at the start and end of using a project, this helps you to setup the
PATH or set compiler options and so on.

See :help project.txt for more details.

Running code from the text

You can run code directly from Vim using plugins such as EvalSelection.vim or simpler
plugins like inc-python.vim.

SCM integration
If you start editing a file, you can even make it automatically checked out from Perforce
using the perforce plugin. Similarly, there is a CVS/SVN/SVK/Git integration plugin.

More
To explore more plugins to implement IDE-like behavior in Vim, see:

Vim Tip: Using vim as an IDE all in one

C++/Python Vim+IDE plugins list

There are more language-specific plugins that can help you do nifty things. For example, for
Python, the following plugins can be helpful:

SuperTab allows you to call omni-completion by just pressing tab and then use arrow
keys to choose the option.
python_calltips shows a window at the bottom which gives you the list of possibilities for
completion. The cool thing about this, compared to omni-completion, is that you get to
view the documentation for each of the possibilities.
VimPdb helps you to debug Python programs from within Vim.

Writing your own plugins

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A Programmer's Editor

You can write your own plugins to extend Vim in any way that you want. For example, here's
a task that you can take on:

Write a Vim plugin that takes the current word and opens a browser with the documentat
ion for that particular word (the word can be a function name or a class name, etc.).

If you really can't think of how to approach this, take a look at "Online documentation for
word under cursor" tip at the Vim Tips wiki.

I have extended the same tip and made it more generic:

" Add the following lines to your ~/.vimrc to enable online documentation
" Inspiration: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Online_documentation_for_word_under_cursor
function Browser()
if has("win32") || has("win64")
let s:browser = "C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe -new-tab"
elseif has("win32unix") " Cygwin
let s:browser = "'/cygdrive/c/Program\ Files/Mozilla\ Firefox/firefox.exe' -new-tab"
elseif has("mac") || has("macunix") || has("unix")
let s:browser = "firefox -new-tab"
endif

return s:browser
endfunction

function Run(command)
if has("win32") || has("win64")
let s:startCommand = "!start"
let s:endCommand = ""
elseif has("mac") || has("macunix") " TODO Untested on Mac
let s:startCommand = "!open -a"
let s:endCommand = ""
elseif has("unix") || has("win32unix")
let s:startCommand = "!" let s:endCommand = "&"
else
echo "Don't know how to handle this OS!"
finish
endif

let s:cmd = "silent " . s:startCommand . " " . a:command . " " . s:endCommand
" echo s:cmd
execute s:cmd
endfunction

function OnlineDoc()
if &filetype == "viki"
" Dictionary
let s:urlTemplate = "http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/<name>"
elseif &filetype == "perl"
let s:urlTemplate = "http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/<name>.html"

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A Programmer's Editor

elseif &filetype == "python"

let s:urlTemplate = "http://www.google.com/search?q=<name>&domains=docs.python.org&sit
esearch=docs.python.org
elseif &filetype == "ruby"
let s:urlTemplate = "http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/<name>.html"
elseif &filetype == "vim"
let s:urlTemplate = "http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/search.php?search=<name>&docs=help"
endif

let s:wordUnderCursor = expand("<cword>")

let s:url = substitute(s:urlTemplate, '<name>', s:wordUnderCursor, 'g')

call Run(Browser() . " " . s:url)

endfunction

noremap <silent> <M-d> :call OnlineDoc()<CR>

inoremap <silent> <M-d> <Esc>:call OnlineDoc()<CR>a

Access Databases
You can even talk to some 10 different databases from Oracle to MySQL to PostgreSQL to
Sybase to SQLite, all from Vim, using the dbext.vim plugin. The best part is that this plugin
helps you to edit SQL written within PHP, Perl, Java, etc. and you can even directly execute
the SQL even though it is embedded within another programming language and even asking
you for values for variables.

Summary
We have learned how Vim can be used for programming with the help of various plugins and
settings. If we need a feature, it can be solved by writing our own Vim plugins (as we have
discussed in the Scripting chapter).

A good source of related discussions is at Stack Overflow and Peteris Krumins's blog.

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More

More

Introduction
We've explored so many features of Vim, but we still haven't covered them all, so let's take a
quick wild ride through various topics that are useful and fun.

Modeline
What if you wanted to specify that a certain file should always use pure tabs and no spaces
while editing. Can we enforce that within the file itself?

Yes. Just put vim: noexpandtab within the first two lines or last two lines of your file.

An example:

# Sample Makefile
.cpp:
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $< -o $@

# vim: noexpandtab

This line we are adding is called a "modeline."

Portable Vim
If you keep switching between different computers, isn't it a pain to maintain your Vim setup
exactly the same on each machine? Wouldn't it useful if you could just carry Vim around in
your own USB disk? This is exactly what Portable GVim is.

Just unzip into a directory on the portable disk, then run GVimPortable.exe . You can even
store your own vimrc and other related files on the disk and use it anywhere you have a
Microsoft Windows computer.

Upgrade plugins

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More

Any sufficiently advanced Vim user would be using a bunch of plugins and scripts added to
their ~/.vim or ~/vimfiles directory. What if we wanted to update them all to the latest
versions? You could visit the script page for each of them, download and install them, but
there's a better way: just run :GLVS (which stands for 'G'et 'L'atest 'V'im 'S'cripts).

See :help getscript for details.

There are scripts to even twitter from Vim!

Dr.Chip's plugins
"Dr. Chip" has written some amazing Vim plugins over many years.

One of my favorites is drawit.vim, which helps you to draw text-based drawings such as
those fancy ASCII diagrams you have seen before.

Another is align.vim, which helps you to align consecutive lines together. For example, say
you have the following piece of program code:

a = 1
bbbbb = 2
cccccccccc = 3

Just visually select these three lines and press \t=, and voila, it becomes like this:

a = 1
bbbbb = 2
cccccccccc = 3

This is much easier to read than before and makes your code look more professional.
Explore Dr. Chip's page to find out about many more interesting plugins.

Blog from Vim

Using the Vimpress plugin, you can blog to your Wordpress blog right within Vim.

Make Firefox work like Vim

Use the Vimperator add-on to make Firefox behave like Vim, complete with modal behavior,
keyboard shortcuts to visit links, status line, tab completion, and even marks support!

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More

Bram's talk on the seven habits

Bram Moolenaar, the creator of Vim, had written an article long ago titled "Seven habits of
effective text editing" that explained how you should use a good editor (such as Vim).

Bram recently gave a talk titled "Seven habits for effective text editing, 2.0" where he goes
on to describe the newer features of Vim as well as how to effectively use Vim. This talk is a
good listen for any regular Vim user.

Contribute to Vim
You can contribute to Vim in various ways, such as working on development of Vim itself,
writing plugins and color schemes, contributing tips, and helping with the documentation.

If you want to help in the development of Vim itself, see :help development .

Community
Many Vim users hang out at the [email protected] mailing list where questions and doubts are
asked and answered. The best way to learn more about Vim and to help other beginners
learn Vim is to frequently read (and reply) to emails in this mailing list.

Find more articles and discussions at Google+ and reddit.

Summary
We've seen some wide range of Vim-related stuff and how it can be beneficial to us. Feel
free to explore these and many more Vim scripts to help you ease your editing and make it
even more convenient.

94
What Next

What Next

Introduction
We have explored so much about Vim. What's next?

If you have learned and understood vim and made it a habit, then you are officially a
Vimmer. Congratulations!

Now, immediately send me an e-mail thanking me for this book ;-) . This step is optional but
recommended.

Also, you might make a donation to support the continued development of this book, or
donate to the Vim project to help children in Uganda.

Next, I recommend regularly following the Vim mailing list to see the kinds of queries and
answers that appear there. You would be surprised to see the amount of activity and the
range of flexibility of Vim demonstrated in the discussion. And you never know; you might be
able to answer a few queries, too.

Two other important resources you should explore are the "Best of Vim Tips" page and the
all-important user manual, which is an index to everything possible in Vim. Make sure to
refer the user manual from time to time and familiarize yourself with how to find the relevant
information so you can look up commands as required.

Lastly, if you want to know the latest cool features in Vim, then see :help new-7 .

Summary
We have gone through a very broad overview of the range of things possible in Vim. The
most important things we have stressed again and again are: to not learn every feature
possible, but to make the features most useful to you a habit; and to make sure to use the
:help to look for features when needed.

So, go forth and skyrocket your editing skills to greater efficiency and effectiveness than you
ever thought possible.

Happy Vimming!

95
What Next

96
Feedback

Feedback
This book is a work-in-progress. Your feedback is essential to improving the book. So,
please do send in your comments.

This book is also available on its official website as a wiki so go ahead and fix things yourself
as well!

Known Gaps are:

Inconsistent use of examples

Current strength is the later chapters (for experienced Vimmers) as opposed to the
beginners' chapters.

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Charityware

Charityware
Vim is "charityware". If you find Vim useful, you are encouraged to help the ICCF Holland
foundation in any way you can.

From their website:

The south of Uganda has been suffering from the highest HIV infection rate in the worl
d. Parents die of AIDS, just when their children need them most. An extended family ca
n be their new home. Fortunately there is enough food in this farming district. But wh
o will pay their school fees, provide medical aid and help them grow up? That is where
ICCF Holland helps in the hope that they will be able to take care of themselves, and
their children, in the long run.

Details on ICCF can be found in Vim by running :help iccf .

You can sponsor Vim development by making a monetary donation and becoming a Vim
registered user; you get to vote on what new features will be added to Vim!

98
Colophon

Colophon

About this book

This is an alpha edition of the book. That means it may contain incomplete sections, obvious
mistakes, blatant lack of detail, and more. Please feel free to send constructive suggestions.

Creating this book

This book would have never been written without Vim 7. My life would never have been
complete without Vim. Thank you Bram Moolenaar and Vimmers all over the world.

The original content was written in Viki syntax were then strung together using deplate.
Special thanks to Thomas Link for patiently answering all my queries on how to use
Viki/Deplate :-)

The book was later converted into a wiki format. Even though the book is now being edited
online live, I still use Vim to write and copy/paste to MediaWiki to save the text.

Inspiration
I started writing this book in 2004 or so. It ended up on the back burner.

I revived writing the book in the month after foss.in 2006 thanks to the infective spirit of the
people there.

But yet again, I couldn't sustain the momentum. I started to be more productive when I
started following David Allen's Getting Things Done principles. This led me to revive working
on the book. I finally got it in good-enough shape to be released to the world on the first day
of foss.in 2008.

About the author

Swaroop C H is 26 years of age. He graduated in B.E. (Computer Science) from PESIT,
Bangalore, India. He currently works at his co-founded startup IONLAB. He has previously
worked at Yahoo! and Adobe. His passions are reading and writing, running and cycling, and
some coding.

99
Colophon

More about him at http://www.swaroopch.com/about/

He can be contacted via http://www.swaroopch.com/contact/

100