Vim

Installing Vim

macOSLinux

On macOS Vim is also already installed, but it's quite an onld version and has no python support built in. Therefore it's suggested to install a recent version using Homebrew: brew install vim

Every Linux distribution brings a Vim package that is installable by using the distribution's package manager.

Besides Vim also consider to use Neovim right away. This is a modern drop-in replacement for Vim. That means it function almost identical, can almost be identically configured, but feature Lua support and a lot more possibilities and features. Neovim can also be installed using Homebrew or from a pre-built package. See Neovim releases for the download links.

Tutorials

When beginning the journey of master Vim, a first stop might the built in tutorial. Type vimtutor to start this "interactive document".

There is huge Vim tutorial in 5 pieces targetting beginners and builds up to veterans:

And other Tutorials with its strengths and weaknesses:

And espcially about Text Objects:

Vim Text Objects: The Definitive Guide

And Vimscript which also covers customizing Vim and not only plugin development:

Learn Vimscript the Hard Way

And finally one from the Vim project leader Bram Moolenaar himself, though not for beginners but those that already know Vim for some time but want to get better:

Seven habits of effective text editing

There's even a browser game vim-adventures that teaches Vim.

Learning Videos

The Vim Tutorial (beginner)

Mastering the Vim Language (advanced)

How to Do 90% of What Plugins Do (With Just Vim) (advanced)

In vim, how do I...

replace line breaks?

As a command, type

:%s/^M$//

To get ^M, press Ctrl+V followd by Ctrl+M

search and replace over all project files

This recipe is copied and condensed from jdhao's blog.

We can use vimgrep command to populate the Vim quickfix list with files matching our specific pattern. The cfdo command can then be utilized to perform replacement operation for each file in the quickfix list.

vimgrep

To find all files containing Neovim under current directory using vimgrep, we can use the following the command:

:vimgrep /Neovim/gj **/*

In the above command, Neovim is our search pattern. The meanings of g and j flags are as follows:

g: Add all matches in a line to the quickfix list.
j: Do not jump the cursor to the location of first pattern match.

The **/* specify the files to search for the pattern. In this case, it means to search recursively under the current directory and for all files types. You can also search only in certain files types by adding a file type to the search pattern.

After this step, the quickfix will be populated with the matching files, lines and column number (use copen to open the quickfix list):

cfdo

After the quickfix list is filled with files containing the search pattern, we now use cfdo command to perform replace operation on each file:

:cfdo %s/Neovim/Nvim/ge | update

The cfdo command can be followed by one command or a series of commands (separated by |). In the above example, we first perform substitution, then followed by update command so that the replacement change is saved.

Suggested Plugins

General Plugins

vim-surround

The plugin tpope/vim-surround by Tim Pope feature text objects and commands regaring manipulation of surroundings.
See the glorious tutoriol of Daniel Weibel.

vim-indent-object

This plugin features new text objects for working on indendet blocks of any kind. Found at vim-text-objects. For usage see the docs

Markdown

There's a good write-up on using markdown in Vim

vim-criticmarkup

If using ciritic markup, this plugin adds vim functions to approve or reject changes, though obviously not maintained anymore. Recommended by vim-markdown.

Another good blog post is Markdown Writing and Previewing in Neovim - A Complete Guide

Vim