Instantly Better Vim

Date:2012-07-20 Speaker:Damian Conway Slides:http://tinyurl.com/IBV2012 (also includes vim snippets)

The Gist

• Handy snippets to make vim awesomer

Help

• :helpgrep - search help for patterns
• :vimgrep /pat/ files... - grep results into vim

Navigating

• ctrl-W T - turn a window into a tab
• :set ruler - shows line num/pos
• :help statusline - customize the ruler
• nnoremap <SPACE> <PAGEDOWN> - hit space to page down in normal mode

Persistent Undos

• ctrl-R - redo
• earlier 30s - temporal undo (30s)
• later 1m - temporal redo (1m)
• Normally the undo buffer is lost
  • set undodir=$HOME/tmp/.VIM_UNDO_FILES - set undo dir
  • set undolevels=5000 (default 1000)
• :help undo-persistence
• Plugin to warn undo into previous session (see PDF)

Visual block mode

• Specify area to be affected; then specify command
• ctrl-V, navigate to select rectangular area
• :set virtualedit=block - always stay in block
• Persistent visual selections (in tarball: plugin/persistentvisuals.vim)
  • gv - restore previous selection
• Column highlighting (in tarball: plugin/visualguide.vim)

Searching

• :set ignorecase - ignore case
• :set smartcase - partial sensitivity: If string has a capital letter, search case-sensitive
• Search highlighting
  • :highlight search ctermfg=white ctermbg=red
  • :set hlsearch - enable search highlighting
  • :nohlsearch - disable highlighted results

Regex

• Metasyntax must be \-escaped, e.g. \\t
• Start pattern with \v and all metasyntax will be treated as literals
• nmap / /\v - make literal search the default
• Search folding to fold buffer on search (in tarball: plugin/foldsearches.vim)

Marks

• When you jump, vim leaves a mark
• Mark hotness
  • With persistent undos these persist too!
  • `` - go back to previous mark
  • `. - jump to last place you modified the buffer
  • `" - jump to last place from last session
  • ctrl-O - walk history of all jumps - backwards
  • ctrl-I - walk history of all jumps - forwards
  • g; - backward thru modifications
  • g, - forwards thru modifications

Advanced editing

• y} - yank paragraph
• diw - delete surrounding word
• di( - delete between (...)
• di" - delete between "..."
• dit - delete between (x)html tags <...>
• vipJ - select paragraph, join all lines together