Vim Cheat Sheet

Navigation

• End of the file: shift + g
• Next line: j
• Go down a defined number of lines: number + j
• Skip to next word: w
• Skip back a word: b
• Skip to next section: W
• Skip back to previous section: B
• Go to end of the line: $
• Go to beginning of the line: 0
• Go to top of the screen: shift + h
• Go to bottom of the screen: shift + l
• Forward multiple words: 5w
• Forward multiple letters: 5l
• Back multiple letters: 5h
• Forward to the next 'y': fy (case sensitive)
• Ctrl-d move half-page down
• Ctrl-u move half-page up
• Ctrl-b page up
• Ctrl-f page down

Editing

• Undo: u
• Redo: ctrl + r
• Inserting text where the cursor is: i
• Inserting text at the start of the line: I
• Insert at the end of the line: shift + a
• Copy entire line: yy or Y
• Copy word: yw
• Paste copied line: p
• Paste from System Clipboard: "+P
• Change multiple words: 5cw
• Insert at the end of the line: A
• Append at end of word: ea
• Insert at beginning of word: bi
• Copy whole line to system clipboard (on mac os): "*yy

Deleting

• d will delete current and left character
• d$ will delete from current position to end of line
• d^ will delete from current backward to first non-white-space character
• d0 will delete from current backward to beginning of line
• dw deletes current to end of current word (including trailing space)
• db deletes current to beginning of current word
• dt#{insert_character} will delete up to but not including the character
• df#{insert_character} will delete up to and including the character
• Delete current line: dd
• Join the line below: shift + j
• Delete entire word: cw
• Delete to the end of the line: shift + C
• Delete multiple lines: d + number of lines + enter
• Delete from current position to a specific line number: dG
• Deleting all items in a file that start with a pattern: :g/< search term>/d
• Deleting all lines that are empty or that contain only whitespace: :g/^\s*$/d

Selecting

• Select the entire line: V
• Select a range of text: v
• Select a column: control + v
• Reselect a block: gv
• Select all: ggVG

Find and Replace

• %s/pattern/text to replace

Saving

• Save the file: :w
• Save the file and quit: :wq
• Quit without saving: :q!

Views

• Use horizontal split: :sp filename
• Use vertical split: :vsp filename
• Switch from top to bottom: control + w + j
• Switch from left to right: control + w + l
• Switch from bottom to top: control + w + j
• Switch from right to left: control + w + h

Ctrlp plugin

• Open file in vertical pane: conrol + v

NERDTree Plugin

• Open file in vertical pane: s
• Open file and don't move focus it (preview it): go

Search

• While on current line: f +
• Search for word in file: /word + enter
• Find next search result: n
• Search backwards: N
• Go to first result: ggn
• Go to last result: GN
• To remove search highlighting: :noh

Modes

• Normal
• Insert
• Visual
• Replace
• Command Line

Multiple Files

• :e filename - Edit a file in a new buffer
• :bnext (or :bn) - go to next buffer
• :bprev (of :bp) - go to previous buffer
• :bd - delete a buffer (close a file)
• :sp filename - Open a file in a new buffer and split window
• ctrl + ws - Split windows
• ctrl + ww - switch between windows
• ctrl + wq - Quit a window
• ctrl + wv - Split windows vertically
• :qa close all open vim windows
• :wqa save work in all tabs and quit
• :ls show all files in buffer (open)

Indenting

• Fix indenting when pasting: set paste in .vimrc file
• Indenting: visual mode + > or <
• Repeat indenting: . (The period repeats the last action done)

Commenting/Uncommenting

• Comment: visual block select with CTRL-V then I# (insert # in the begining)
• Uncomment: visual block select with CTRL-V then X (delete the first symbol on the line)

Visual Mode

• Changing multiple lines of text: control + v + shift + i + action + esc
• Select elements in paragraph: v + / + content

Display settings

• Turning on line numbers: :set nu
• Turning on syntax highlighting: :syntax on

Reseting Vim Settings

cd
mv .vimrc .vimrc-old
mv .vim .vim-old
touch .vimrc; mkdir .vim

Help

• To get help: :h
• To exit help: :bd

Removing blocks of text in code files

• c + i + t will remove the code between HTML tags, such as: <div>Some content</div>
• c + i + } will remove the code inside of a JavaScript function

Running terminal commands (without closing vim completely)

• :! <your command here>

Suspend File (close file without saving and without losing your work)

• <ctrl> + z
• View "open files" with jobs
• open job with fg
• open specific job with fg %<specific job number>

Running Macros

• qr
• Do the actions you want repeated
• hit escape and then q
• 3@r the number can change for how many times you want to repeat

Using grep for searching all files

• grep '<seach_term>' **/*.<file_type> use -i for case insensitive search

Use within VIM

• :grep -ir '<search_term>' .. This willl open the first matched pattern, to browse through them use :cn and :cp. To see the quick list use :copen and :cclose to close the quickfix list.

Running Javascript without saving file

• w !node

Personal settings

Ruby Code

Seeing is Believing Plugin

• Annotate every line: ,b
• Annotate marked lines: ,n
• Clean up annotations: ,c

Node Code

Vim-Node

• Go to file path: gf
• Look for keyword in required files: [I