VimTutorials

Resources for learning Vim.

Some of these resources may prove to be more useful to you than this document. Exercises provided below are constructed in such a way each build on each other. Consider this resource as a supplement to the links given below. Before doing that start 'vimtutor'

• Learn vim For the Last Time: A Tutorial and Primer
• Luke Smith's Youtube Vim tutorials
• Vim Tutorial for Beginners: vimtutor
• Dr. Chip's Vim Page
• VIM Cheatsheet
• Vi Keybindings
• OpenVim Tutor
• Groking Vim
• Vim Regex

Vimesque file managers

• Vim Explorer
• Ranger
• Vifm

Vimesque web browsers

• Qutebrowser
• Vimium
• Vimperator

Recommended Peripherals

• Tap -- Gesture driven keyboard & mouse
• Kinesis -- Ergonomic keyboard + coconut oil

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Exercises

Do the excercises below in the following order:

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Getting Started

Curl

Instance:

  'curl -o VimTutorials.gz https://github.com/esch3r/VimTutorials'

Git

Another way to yank these files to view them in console is with the git clone command.

'$ git clone https://github.com/esch3r/VimTutorials'

.vimrc Config

Its common to place the .vimrc configuration file '/etc/vim/vimrc/' or '/etc/vimrc/' another alternative which works well if the default .vimrc is read-only is to place it in your home directory '~'.

1. Basic Configuration

Upload git respository for pathogen into the following file path: '~/.vim/autoload/pathogen.vim' Or copy and paste the following into your terminal/shell 'mkdir -p ~/.vim/autoload ~/.vim/bundle && ' 'curl -LSso /.vim/autoload/pathogen.vim https://tpo.pe/pathogen.vim' For each plugin upload them inside bundle folder '/.vim/bundle/'

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Lesson 1. Entering/Exiting Vim

1. Open a file with Vim FirstLesson.txt
2. Once in vim hit i to enter insert mode. Write some random sentences for practice later. When finished hit the esc key.
3. Repeat this text selection, as many times as the task requires:
   • Using the arrow keys move the cursor about the screen.
   • Enter visual mode by pressing v
   • Highlight text using the cursor in visual mode using the arrow keys.
   • Press y to yank or otherwise known as copy the selected text.
   • Move using arrow keys again to intended location in the text to paste
   • Press p to paste selected text in question.
4. Upon exiting and saving your progress preform following keystokes listed below in the table to write or discard file edits:

Keystroke	Function
:w or w file	save changes to buffer or safe file to new file
ZZ or :wq	Save changes and quit
:q!	quit without saving

Lesson 2. Modes within vim

Insert:

• Modify the file inserting new text.

Visual:

• Visually select text by moving cursor over it, then operate over the text thats selected.
• Visual mode has many different subtypes: visual, block visual, and linewise visual.

Normal:

• Default mode
• Allows quick mauevers through the text.
• Switching between other modes.

Select:

Command:

Lesson 3. Navigating text

Keystroke	Function
h	Move cursor left
l/spacebar	Move cursor right
k/Ctrl+p	Move cursor up
J/Ctrl+n	Move cursor down
w	Move cursor up
b	Move cursor down
e	Move cursor up
W	Move cursor down
B	Move to beginning of previous word before whitespace
E	Move to end of word before a whitespace
0	Move to the beginning of the line
$	move to the end of the line

Lesson 4. Window Pains

Keystroke	Function
hsp	Horizontally split window
vsp	vertically split window
Shift+W	Traverse between windows

Lesson 5. Searching

keystroke	Function
/PaTTeRn	Search forward for PaTTeRn
?PaTTeRn	Search backward for PaTTeRn
n	Repeat foward search
N	Repeat backward search