Vimtutor

The Vimtutor is Vim’s interactive tutorial. It’s included in most (all?) Vim installations. You can find more information about it here.

lesson 1

• h j k l movement
• vim <filename open file
• ESC normal mode
• :q! exit without saving
• x delete char under cursor
• i insert text
• A to append text at end of line
• :wq save and exit

lesson 2

• dw delete rest of word
• d$ delete until end of line
• motions: w start of next word, e end of current word, $ end of line
• count: number before motion to repeat
• 0 to start of line
• 2dw and d2w do the same thing, operator-[number]-motion
• dd delete line
• u undo change
• U undo changes whole line
• ctrl+r redo

lesson 3

• p put deleted after cursor
• r replace character at cursor
• c[number]<motion> change until motion

lesson 4

• ctrl+g file location and status
• G move to bottom of file
• gg move to start of file
• <lineno>G go to line number
• / search forward, ? search backward, n match forward, N match backward
• ctrl+o jump back in jumplist, ctrl+i jump forward in jumplist
• % matching parentheses )]}
• :s/old/new single find-and-replace
• :s/old/new/g line-global find-and-replace
• :#,#s/old/new/g range of lines
• :%s/old/new/g whole file
• :%s/old/new/gc whole file, prompt

lesson 5

• :!<command> execute external command
• :w <filename> save file
• v visual mode (selection)
• :r <thing> retrieve and insert, e.g. :r <filename> or :r !ls

lesson 6

• o open line below cursor
• O open line above cursor
• a append text after cursor
• R replace mode
• y yank for copy (yank is operator so movements)
• p put for paste
• :set ic ignore case, :set noic
• :set hls is hlsearch (highlight matches) and incsearch (show partial matches) options
• :nohlsearch disable highlighting of matches
• \c ignore case for single search, e.g. /ignore\c
• ic ignorecase, is incsearch, hls hlsearch

lesson 7

• F1, :help
• ctrl+w ctrl+w jump windows
• :q close window
• :help <something>
• ~/.vimrc startup script
• ctrl+d tab command completion