Vim tutorial and useful installations

Why use vim

• Comes preinstalled on many many Unix-like machines
• Support for a large and fanatic community
• Concepts are portable to many full featured IDEs Jet-Brains, VS-Code
• Vim shortcuts are often avaialble in other unix programs
• You never stop learning vim

Getting started

Resources to get started:

Interactive tutorial for basic movement

• vimtutor
• openvim
• Type :help in your vim

The mode modal

There are 3 main modes for vim:

1. Normal mode: Where you move around and do most of the things
2. Insert mode: Where you insert text in short bursts
3. Visual mode: For text selection, copy paste, etc

Basic motions

Chaning modes

• esc: exit back to normal mode

• i enter insert mode

• v enter visual mode
  You should always be in visual mode, unless you are inserting text. The power of vim is treating text as repeatable actions.

• /: Search mode, jump back and forth with n and N

Navigation

• hjkl for moving around

• Ctrl+o Jump to the last palce you have viewed

• Ctrl+i/Tab Jump forward

• w,b to skip words forward and back

• Ctrl+d page down

• Ctrl+u page up

Editing commands

• c change
• d delete
• r replace
• y yank
• p paste
• u undo
• Ctrl+r redo
• . repeat the last editing action

You can combine operator + number + motion
Examples:

• Delete 7 lines down
• Change word
• Change between parenthesis

Saving and exiting

• :w write
• :q quit
• :wa write all
• :wq write and quit TIP: Remap the following to save frustration:

command! Q q
command! W w
command! Wq wq
command! WQ wq
command! WA wa
command! Wa wa
command! Qa qa
command! QA qa

More useful keys

• > indent selected line or text right
• < indent selected or text left
• = Align indentation
• * Search word under cursor forward
• # Search word under cursor back

Plugins

Vim has an extensive plugin system. You can find a plugin for syntax highlight, spell check, linting, code completion, git integration.

To use plugins you need a plugin manager. There are a few to choose from.

• vim-pathogen
• vim-plug

Pathogen

After following installation process, simply clone the relevant repository into $HOME/.vim/bundle (other actions may apply)

• Basically anything by Tim Pope

  • Plugin manager: vim-pathogen
  • Sensible settings: vim-sensible
  • Git integration: vim-fugitive

• vim-airline: Compact status line with lots of useful information

• Code completion:

  • necomplete
  • deoplete
  • YouCompleteMe

• Linting:

  • ale

Installation

Get support for python3 and/or lua

brew install vim
Then run vim --version to make sure you see +lua, +python

Main configuration file is $HOME/.vimrc Additional configurations an plugins $HOME/.vim

Repository installation:

Clone this repository as .vim

git clone https://github.com/amanusk/dotvim.git .vim

make soft links

ln -s .vim/vimrc .vimrc

Install the plugins on a new machine

cd .vim &&
git submodule init &&
git submodule update 

Update the plugins

git submodule foreach git pull origin master

Add new submodule

git submodule add http://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive.git bundle/fugitive

Remove submodule

Delete the relevant section from the .gitmodules file.
Stage the .gitmodules changes git add .gitmodules
Delete the relevant section from .git/config.
Run git rm --cached path_to_submodule (no trailing slash).
Run rm -rf .git/modules/path_to_submodule
Commit git commit -m "Removed submodule <name>"
Delete the now untracked submodule files
rm -rf path_to_submodule

Other softlinks

ln -s .vim/.bash_aliases .bash_aliases &&
ln -s .vim/tmux.conf .tmux.conf 

Resources

• Vim-casts: Many useful vim features, novice and advanced
• Setting up vim for typescript https://www.vimfromscratch.com/articles/setting-up-vim-for-typescript/

Where vim came from