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Oct 03, 2018

Additional resources / Screencasts

• vimcasts.org

• By wincent

• By Derek Wyatt

Apr 10, 2018

Ranges

• Most commands act only on the current line by default. Notable exceptions are :write and :global which act on all lines.

Jan 20, 2018

True colors / Small intro

• The first line should be the same for most people and denotes the $TERM to be used within tmux.

• The second line adds the tmux-specific Tc (true color) capability to the other terminfo entries of xterm-256color. Obviously this assumes that the user is using TERM=xterm-256color outside of tmux.

• Read :h 'termguicolors'.

• Put set termguicolors in your vimrc.

• Make sure your colorscheme has color definitions for GUIs. (It should contain lines with guifg and guibg.)

• Make sure your terminal emulator of choice supports true colors.

• Using tmux? Configure it to add the Tc capability.

Nov 07, 2017

Quickfix and location lists

• There is only one quickfix list. There can be multiple location lists; one per window.

• They use slightly different commands for navigation.

Jun 26, 2017

Getting help offline

• VimL functions end in (), e.g. :h reverse()

• commands start with :, e.g. :h :echo

Apr 22, 2017

Backup files

• Copying
  1. A full copy of the original file is created and used as backup.
  2. The original file gets emptied and then filled with the content of the Vim buffer.

• Renaming
  1. The original file is renamed to the backup file.
  2. The content of the Vim buffer gets written to a new file with the name of the original file.

Jan 04, 2017

Vim distributions / Screencasts

• spacevim (⭐19k)

Aug 07, 2016

Function search undo / Screencasts

• A search pattern in a command (/, :substitute, ...) changes the "last used search pattern". (It's saved in the / register; print it with :echo @/).

• A simple text change can be redone with .. (It's saved in the . register; print it with :echo @.).

Mar 08, 2016

Cscope

• Where is this symbol defined?

• Where is this symbol used?

• What is this global symbol's definition?

• Where did this variable get its value?

• Where is this function in the source files?

• What functions call this function?

• What functions are called by this function?

• Where does the message "out of space" come from?

• Where is this source file in the directory structure?

• What files include this header file?

Jan 19, 2016

Getting help offline (alternative)

• Options are enclosed in single quotes. So you would use :h 'list' to go to the help topic for the list option. If you only know, you are looking for a certain option, you can also do :h options.txt to open the help page which describes all option handling and then you can search using regular expressions e.g. /width. Certain options have their own namespace, e.g. :h cpo-a, :h cpo-A, :h cpo-b, and so on.

• Normal mode commands are just that. Use :h gt to go to the help page for the "gt" command.

• Regexp items always start with "/", so :h /\+ takes you to the help item for the "+" quantifier in Vim regexes. If you need to know anything about regular expressions, start reading at :h pattern.txt.

• Key combinations. They usually start with a single letter indicating the mode for which they can be used. E.g. :h i_CTRL-X takes you to the family of CTRL-X commands for insert mode which can be used to auto complete different things. Note that certain keys will always be written the same, e.g. Control will always be CTRL. Note, for normal mode commands, the "n" is left away, e.g. :h CTRL-A. In contrast, :h c_CTRL-R will describe what CTRL-R does when entering commands in the command line and :h v_Ctrl-A talks about incrementing numbers in visual mode and :h g_CTRL-A talks about the g command (thus you have to press "g" then ). Here the "g" stand for the normal command "g" which always expect a second key before doing something similar to the commands starting with "z".

• Registers always start with "quote" so use :h quote to find out about the special ":" register.

• Vim script (VimL) is available at :h eval.txt. Certain aspects of the language are available at :h expr-X where 'X' is a single letter, e.g. :h expr-! will take you to the topic describing the '!' (Not) operator for VimL. Also important, see :h function-list to find a short description of all functions available.

• Mappings are talked about in the help page :h map.txt. Use :h mapmode-i to find out about the :imap command. Also use :map-topic to find out about certain subtopics particular for mappings (e.g. :h :map-local for buffer-local mappings or :h map_bar for how the '|' is handled in mappings.

• Command definitions are talked about at :h command-*, so use :h command-bar to find out about the '!' argument for custom commands.

• Window management commands always start with CTRL-W, so you find the corresponding help at :h CTRL-W_* (e.g. :h CTRL-W_p for switch to the previously accessed window). You can also access :h windows.txt and read your way through, if you are looking for window handling command.

• Ex commands always start with ":", so :h :s covers the ":s" command.

• Use CTRL-D after typing a topic and let Vim try to complete to all available topics.

• Use :helpgrep to search in all help pages (usually also includes help pages by installed plugins). See :h :helpgrep for how to use it. Once you have searched for a topic, all matches are available in the quickfix (or location) window which can be opened with :copen or :lopen. There you can also use / to further filter the matches.

• :h helphelp contains some information on how to use the help.

• The user manual. This describes help topics for beginners in a rather friendly way. Start at :h usr_toc.txt to find the table of content (as you might have guessed). Skimming over that help to find certain topics, .e.g you will find an entry "Digraphs" and "Entering special characters" in chapter 24 (so use :h usr_24.txt to go to that particular help page).

• Highlighting groups always start with hl-*. E.g. :h hl-WarningMsg talks about the "WarningMsg" highlighting group.

• Syntax highlighting is namespaced to ":syn-topic", e.g. :h :syn-conceal talks about the conceal argument for the :syn command.

• Quickfix commands usually start with ":c", while location list commands usually start with ":l".

• :h BufWinLeave talks about the BufWinLeave autocmd. Also, :h autocommands-events talks about all possible events.

• Startup arguments always start with "-", so :h -f takes you to the help of the "-f" command switch of Vim.

• Compiled extra features always start with "+", so :h +conceal talks about the conceal support.

• Error codes can be looked up directly in the help. :h E297 takes you exactly to the description of the error message. Sometimes however, those error codes are not described, but rather are listed at the Vim command that usually causes this. E.g. :h hE128 takes you directly to the :function command.

• Documentation for included syntax files is usually available at :h ft-*-syntax. E.g. :h ft-c-syntax talks about the C syntax file and the options it provides. Sometimes, additional sections for omni completion (:h ft-php-omni) or filetype plugins (:h ft-tex-plugin) are available.

Jan 18, 2016

Ranges

• Many commands take ranges.

• An address denotes a certain line.

• A range is either a single address or a pair of addresses separated by either , or ;.

• Ranges tell commands which lines to act on.

Macros

• Start recording by typing q followed by the register, e.g. q. (The command-line will signify this via "recording @q".)

• Stop recording by hitting q once again.

• Execute the macro via [count]@q.

• Repeat the last used macro via [count]@@.

Jan 13, 2016

Cheatsheets

• http://people.csail.mit.edu/vgod/vim/vim-cheat-sheet-en.png

• https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0165/4168/files/preview.png

• http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/vim/vim_cheat_sheet_for_programmers_screen.png

• http://www.rosipov.com/images/posts/vim-movement-commands-cheatsheet.png

Jan 10, 2016

Delays when using escape key in terminal / Screencasts

• <esc> is used a lot for returning to normal mode or quitting an action.

• Cursor keys are encoded using escape sequences.

• Vim expects Alt (also called Meta key) to send a proper 8-bit encoding with the high bit set, but many terminal emulators don't support it (or don't enable it by default) and send an escape sequence instead.

Jan 05, 2016

Getting help offline

• options are enclosed in single quotes, e.g. :h 'textwidth'

Vim distributions / Screencasts

• cream

• janus

• spf13 (⭐15k)