Vim Essentials

The most efficient editor around.

Computer Science House

Jordan Sissel
jls@csh.rit.edu

Introductions Hi! Welcome to the Vim Essentials seminar/workshop!

I am your geeky host, Jordan Sissel.

If you have questions during the presentation, ask them and I will answer them. However, keep in mind that I may be answering your question soon in the slides, anyway.

Mostly, try to focus questions on confusion about the material, rather than focusing on "what if foo?" type questions. Write down other questions and save them for question breaks, if you can.

The slides can be found online at:
http://www.semicomplete.com/presentations/vim Goals At the end of this seminar, you should:

Understand the behavior of a vi-like environment
Feel comfortable with basic editing tools in vim
Know how to find documentation
Know how to configure vim to suit your tastes

Agenda

What is vim?
Caveat Emptor: Steep learning curve
Basic Environment
Editing Skills
Configuration
Advanced Skills and Tools

What is vim? Quoting www.vim.org:

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems.
Vim is often called a "programmer's editor," and so useful for programming that many consider it an entire IDE. It's not just for programmers, though. Vim is perfect for all kinds of text editing, from composing email to editing configuration files.

It runs on many operating systems, including Windows, OSX, and Unix. Why use it? It is very efficient not because of execution speed, but becuase of its interface. The interface and environment provides a means for an extremely efficient editing paradigm.

That is, Vim provides you a huge array of useful tools with which to edit text. Almost all other text editors fail to provide this.

The better you know how to use Vim, the faster you will be able to work. Work faster, finish sooner, and have more free time?

You work more efficiently, and get done faster becuase you spend less time being frustrated with limitations in your editing environment. Caveat Emptor First thing to know about vim:

There is a somewhat steep learning curve Getting into Vim From Unix:

From Windows:
Clicky on the vim icon?

The Windows installer for Vim will give you an option add an "Edit in Vim" context entry for Explorer. This will let you right-click on files and select to edit them in Vim. What to expect This is what vim will probably look like when you first start it up:

Getting out of Vim Vim may seem scary at first, so let's learn how to quit.

To quit:

Press escape
Type ':q'

This will fail (with error) if the file has been modified since it's last save (or since opening/creation). To force quit (without saving):

Press escape
Type ':q!'

This will tell vim to quit and ignore any warnings or normal errors. Learning the Basics Let's go through the vim tutor. Type this in a terminal:

vimtutor

We'll continue this workshop from there.

If you already know how to use vi, then this section's going to be a smidge boring. It shouldn't take too long. Post-tutor review At this point, you know how to:

navigate
open files, save and quit
edit files somewhat

You should also understand the difference between normal (aka command) mode and insertion mode. Vim Mastery Tips Force yourself to stay away from your mouse and non-typeable keys:

Arrow keys are bad, use hjkl
Page up / Page down are bad. Use ^B (page back) and ^F (page forward).
Don't use the mouse, use targeted movements: hjklewbtfHMLnN

Old hat vi users might use Control+[ instead of escape. Thiis historically becuase the escape key did not send that particular key sequence, and thus did not break out of insertion mode.

The original version of vi was designed around keeping your hands on the home row. hjkl was chosen becuase it lies on the home row.

The less distance your hands have to travel, the less time you spend not doing work. Arrow Keys (Don't use them) Arrow keys are bad. Don't use them.

They don't work in normal Vi, which you may be using on some systems
They work in Vim, in insert mode, but don't use them.
Don't use them
Trust me. Don't use them.

Have I drilled it in yet? Sure, arrow keys work in vim. However, it is NOT faster to use them. 99.99999% of the time, you will need to move more than one position, and breaking out of insert mode will be faster than fumbling around on your arrow keys. Chained commands are powerful The true power of vim comes from chaining simple commands together.

Forgot a semicolon?: A;
Forgot to indent your code?: >>
Fix a swapped-letter typo?: xp
Swap this line with the next: ddp
Change a quoted string: ct"

Seriously.. about those arrow keys Don't use them. Windows Vim is a terminal based program, but it has a concept of windows. A window is a scrollable viewport on a buffer. Multiple windows can point at the same buffer.

Run the ":help" command. Help is brought up in a second window - a split view in your terminal.

Windows have a status bar at the bottom indicating what is in the window, and where you are. Window Commands Read :help windows

^Ws or :split: Split the window with both panes viewing the same buffer
:split e myfile.java: Split and open myfile.java in the new window
^W^W: Focus the previous window
^Wc or :close: Close the focused window

Token Completion (What/Why) Vim can complete tokens for you.

This is useful to:

Save time
Cure world hunger
Keep your programs readable

Use more meaningful variable names, and not have to type them fully every single time!

Make your professors happier because you're following their coding standard!
Cure world hunger a second time! WOW!

Token Completion (How)

^P - Complete word at cursor to first match searching backward.
^N - Complete word at cursor to first match searching forward.
^X^F - Complete a filename
^X^I - Complete a token at cursor from searching through included files


#include 

int main() {
	str]]>^X^I ... ^N

Token Completion (How #2) ^P Programming Help The K command will look up a manpage for the word under the cursor.

Try this. Insert 'strlen' and pressing 'K' in command mode while the cursor is over 'strlen' - this will bring up the manpage for 'strlen'

While this is not immediately useful in Java and certain other languages, it is very useful in Perl, C, Python, and others. External commands and filters You can run external commands from vim: :!cmd For instance, you can run ls: :!ls You can also filter code through external programs: :range!cmd Let's rot13 our data: :%!tr a-z n-za-m Example commands Sort the next 5 lines (inclusive of this line): :.,+5!sort Syntax checking yourself Use external commands to perform syntax checks.

Java: :!javac %
Perl: :!perl -c %
C: :!gcc -fsyntax-only %
Bourne Shell: :!sh -n %
XML: :!xmllint %

The % will be expanded to the file being edited. Project building

Help tags - :copen, :make

The :make command will help you build your project, all from inside vim.

By default, it runs 'make' externally and tries to parse the output.
If it can parse it, and there is a build error, it will jump you to the first error found
Open the error window with :copen

Grep - looking for text

Help tag - :grep

Use :grep to search files for content. Matches are reported in the "error" window (:copen to view)

Example - look all java files in current directory for 'Thread.currentThread': Cursor over the line you want to jump to, and press enter. This will jump you to the file/line matched. Delete/Change text-object commands

:help text-objects

Examples:

das: delete the sentence we are in.
diB: Delete an inner { } block

Configuring Vim Vim is highly configurable through settings and other features.

The commands you'll want to know about:

:set
:syntax
:map
:autocmd

NOTE: You will want to store permanent settings in a .vimrc file in your home directory. In windows this file is in a different location.

In windows, it is: path\to\your\homedir\_vimrc
Such as: C:\Documents and Settings\Jordan Sissel\_vimrc

Keep in mind that your Windows home directory may not be in that location above. Check with your systems administrator if you don't know where your home directory is located at.

Don't quote me on the Windows location, though. Read :help _vimrc :set :set lets you enable, disable, and configure many different options in vim.

:set option: Enable option if it is a boolean option
:set nooption: Disable option if it is a boolean option
:set invoption: Invert option if it is a boolean option
:set option=value: Set an option to a value

:set autoindent Auto indent will maintain the level of indentation for new lines. Turn it on, and insert some text. Add a newline, put spaces or tabs at the beginning of the line, more text, and another newline. If the cursor is after 'Foo', pressing enter will cause vim to shift inward on the new line making it line up with the previous one. The new line will start on the 'X' location This is very useful for coding. :set smartindent Smart indent works with more intelligence than autoindent. It tries to recognize "code" and will indent when it deems appropriate.

Disable autoindent first! :set noautoindent

Enable smartindent and type a Java function header, press enter after the '{' and it should autoindent for you. Type some more, and typing a '}' should reduce the indent Misc options

:set number: Show line numbers
:set list (see :help listchars): Show whitespace. Use listchars to configure this.
:set nocompatible: Disable "vi compatibility" mode
:set incsearch: Incremental search
:set hlsearch: Highlight search matches
:set shiftwidth=NUM: Set shift to N spaces for >> command and smartindent
:set expandtab: Use spaces instead of tabs when inserting. The number of spaces is dependent on the tabstop option

Misc options (#2)

:set tabstop=NUM: Set tabs to be displayed as NUM spaces.
:set showmatch: Show () {} and [] matches while writing. (VERY USEFUL)
:set backspace=indent,eol: Enable sane backspace ability for insert mode (for my definition of sane)
:set textwidth=NUM: Set width of buffer before wrapping
:set showcmd: Show the unfinished command-mode command
:set ruler: Put meaningful information in the bottom line of your window

:syntax Vim will do syntax highlighting if you want it to.

:set background=[dark|light]: Tell vim about your background color
:filetype on: Enable automatic file type detection
:syntax on: Enable syntax highlighting.

File types are generally automatically detected. If it does not work, put ':filetype on' in your vimrc

Vim comes standard with MANY syntax highlighting files. My count shows 417 language syntax files. Java, C, C++, C#, Perl, Python, Ruby, Bourne Shell, and many many others are included. :map You can bind (map) keys to actions in vim.

For instance, if you wanted to map Control+S to save: :w]]> The ]]> is notation for saying Control+X.

:map (example) For instance, let's map "\sp" to syntax check perl: ]]>

The ]]> is meant literally. You type ']]>. This has vim insert an end-of-line as if you had typed it after it "types" the perl command.

With this map, you do \sp (literally those 3 characters) in normal mode and it will run:
:!perl -c % :autocmd Autocommands are those that execute automatically under given circumstances. For instance, if you only wanted syntax highlighting enabled in java files: Whenever the filetype is detected as being java, it will execute ":syntax on"

Auto commands are extremely useful, and have a lot of options. I suggest reading the help for them - :help autocmd :autocmd (mail example) I write mail in ~/Mail/drafts/ - let's make some automagic commands to configure my mail-writing preferences.

This will set the filetype (setf) to mail when I open/create new files in anything that matches */Mail/drafts/*.

mail filetype gets textwidth=72 and disables both smartindent and autoindent. Plugins or Scripts Vim has a scripting language built on :foo-type commands.

You can download lots of plugin scripts that extend and add features to Vim.

Go to www.vim.org - click on Search. Search for scripts. Commenter plugin NERD_comments plugin (id 1218)

This handy plugin magically comments things for you. Let's try it.

Search for NERD_comments on vim.org
Download the latest version.
Make sure this directory exists: ~/.vim/plugins/
Put the NERD_comments.vim file in ~/.vim/plugins/
Start vim!
Read :help NERD_comments for instructions on how to use this

What else? Hi. Files

References

My Brain
Vim's endlessly useful documentation (:help)
Keyboard-map cheat sheet obtained from www.viemu.com
"Vi quick reference" layout and some content stolen from www.zippydesign.com/ying/linux/vi/vi-reference.pdf. Original author unknown.