Vim motions continued

This video, “Lesser Known Vim Tricks That Will Boost Your Workflow,” provides a comprehensive guide to various Vim motions and tricks. Here’s a summary of the mentioned tricks and tips:

Exiting Vim Quickly

• ZZ: Saves and quits the file [00:43].
• ZQ: Quits without saving [00:53].

Selecting and Changing Content Inside Delimiters

• vi(: Selects content inside parentheses [01:09].
• vi{: Selects content inside curly braces [01:15].
• vib: Selects content inside parentheses (more accessible on some keyboards) [01:28].
• viB: Selects content inside curly braces [01:37].
• cib: Changes (deletes and enters insert mode) content inside parentheses [01:49].

Making Changes to Multiple Lines (Visual Block Mode)

• Ctrl + v: Enters visual block mode [02:22].
• I (capital I): Enters insert mode at the beginning of the selected block to add text [02:30].
• GV: Re-selects the last highlighted text [02:53].
• $: Moves the cursor to the end of the line [02:59].
• A (capital A): Appends text to the end of the selected lines [03:00].

Toggling Case

• g~: Toggles the case of the character under the cursor [03:24].
• g~w: Toggles the case of the entire word [03:40].
• g~it: Toggles the case of content inside an HTML tag [03:46].

Re-indenting and Jumping Between Matching Pairs

• gg=G: Re-indents the entire file [04:07].
• %: Jumps between matching pairs of parentheses, brackets, or curly braces [04:18].

Managing Vim Sessions

• Ctrl + z: Suspends Vim and puts it in the background [04:51].
• fg: Brings Vim back to the foreground [05:01].
• :mk session <filename.vim>: Creates a Vim session file [05:12].
• :source <filename.vim>: Loads a previously saved Vim session [05:34].

Opening URLs and Files

• gx: Opens the URL under the cursor in a browser [06:21].
• gf: Opens the file path under the cursor [06:42].

Vim Marks for Navigation

• m<lowercase_letter>: Sets a mark within the current file (e.g., ma) [07:13].
• `<lowercase_letter>: Jumps to a mark within the current file (e.g., `a) [07:27].
• m<uppercase_letter>: Sets a mark that can be jumped to from different files (e.g., mA) [07:37].
• `<uppercase_letter>: Jumps to a mark in a different file (e.g., `A) [07:49].

Jumping to Specific Lines

• :<line_number>: Jumps to a specific line number from command mode (e.g., :40) [08:01].
• <line_number>G: Jumps to a specific line number (e.g., 12G) [08:11].

Joining Lines

• J: Joins the current line with the line below it, inserting a space [08:56].
• gJ: Joins the current line with the line below it without inserting a space [09:08].

You can watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdyfT2dbt78

This video, “Vim Motions & Operators Tutorial,” provides a detailed tutorial on various Vim motions and operators. Here’s a breakdown of the key concepts covered:

The video starts by introducing Vim motions as a way to speed up coding, applicable in various modern code editors like PyCharm and VS Code, not just Vim [00:29]. It also mentions that tools like Vime allow browsing the web with these same keys [00:36].

Core Vim Concepts:

• Modes: Vim operates in different modes. The default is Normal Mode, where you can navigate text but not change it [01:07].

• Navigation (Normal Mode):

  • Instead of arrow keys, Vim uses H, J, K, L for left, down, up, and right respectively [01:32].
  • W moves forward word by word [04:51].
  • B moves backward word by word [04:57].
  • E moves to the end of a word [05:04].
  • $ moves to the end of a line [05:28].
  • 0 moves to the very beginning of a line (column zero) [05:35].
  • ^ moves to the first non-blank character of a line [05:47].
  • gg goes to the top of the document [09:40].
  • Shift + G goes to the very last line of the document [09:46].
  • Shift + M moves to the middle of the visible screen [09:53].
  • ZZ scrolls the document to center the current line [10:11].
  • f followed by a character finds the first occurrence of that character on the line [07:16].
  • ; repeats the last find command forward [07:37].
  • , repeats the last find command backward [07:52].
  • Shift + F searches backward from the cursor [07:59].
  • Numbers can be combined with motions (e.g., 4ft to find the fourth ’t’, 5W to jump five words) [08:06].
  • % jumps to the matching counterpart of a bracket, brace, or other pair [14:22].
  • / starts a search forward for a word or pattern [18:18].
  • n scrolls to the next search result [18:38].
  • Shift + N scrolls to the previous search result [18:38].
  • Shift + / (question mark) searches backward [18:50].

• Editing Modes:

  • I enters Insert Mode before the current character [02:25].
  • A enters Insert Mode after the current character [03:39].
  • Shift + A starts writing after the line (appends to the end of the line) [04:04].
  • Shift + I starts writing before the current line [04:32].
  • Escape (or mapped keys like JJ or JK) exits Insert Mode and returns to Normal Mode [02:37].
  • Shift + R enters Replace Mode, allowing you to type over existing text [13:42].
  • o is a quick operator to start a new line in insert mode [17:32].

• Editing Actions (Normal Mode):

  • D is the deletion operator [11:04].
  • dw deletes a word [11:04].
  • dd deletes an entire line [12:14].
  • u is for undo [11:12].
  • Ctrl + R is for redo [14:01].
  • P pastes after the cursor (or after the current line if a line was deleted/yanked) [11:24].
  • Shift + P pastes before the cursor (or before the current line) [12:48].
  • Y is the yank (copy) operator [11:55].
  • yw yanks a word [12:02].
  • yy yanks an entire line [12:21].
  • = = fixes indentation for the current line [08:55].
  • . (dot operator) repeats the last action [17:08].

• Visual Mode:

  • v starts Visual Mode for character-wise selection [13:15].
  • Shift + V starts Visual Line Mode for selecting entire lines [17:51].
  • Ctrl + V starts Visual Block Mode for vertical selection [20:17].

• Text Objects:

  • These allow operations on specific text structures.
  • diw (delete in word) deletes the entire word regardless of cursor position [15:07].
  • daw (delete around word) deletes the word and surrounding space [15:56].
  • This concept extends to other text objects like paragraphs (ip, ap), functions, and content within quotes or brackets (e.g., ci( to change inside parentheses, di" to delete inside quotes) [15:14].

• Command Mode:

  • : (colon) enters Command Mode [19:17].
  • : followed by a command (e.g., q to quit, w to save, wq to save and quit) [21:32].
  • : followed by q! forces quitting without saving [21:51].
  • Shift + ZZ is a shortcut to save and quit [21:58].
  • Search and replace can be done using regular expressions in command mode (e.g., :%s/target/replace/g for global replacement across the document) [19:41].

The video also briefly mentions helpful tools like “Vim Adventures” for practicing navigation [02:14] and “Witch Key” for NeoVim users to suggest next keys in motions [10:32].

You can watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4eA2eC28qg