Showing posts with label Command Mode. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Command Mode. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Vim - Command-Line Mode

When learning Vim, it's important to understand its modes, particularly the Command-Line (or Command or Cmdline mode) where you can enter your own commands in Vim.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Once you installed Vim, learned the basics of Vim Modes and understood Normal mode, it's time to learn another very important mode in Vim: Command-Line Mode (or Command mode, or Cmdline mode). This is the mode where you enter actual commands in Vim.

The Command-Line Mode

It's probably not new to you that Vim is one of the few text editors that allows you to extensively use commands. Combined with Vim's modal design, the Command-Line mode (or to simplify, Command mode) is yet another of Vim's characteristics that make it stand out from alternatives.

Vim's Command mode has a wide variety of commands that allow you to do practically everything. Let's take a look.

Accessing the Command-Line Mode

There are three ways to enter the Command-line mode. Type in Normal mode:

  • : - to enter Ex commands
  • / or ? - to search
  • ! - to filter

Entering commands with :

Typing the : key in Normal mode will allow you to enter Ex commands. Ex commands are Vim's built-in commands you can run to perform any type of operation. Typing : from Normal mode sets your cursor on the last line of the editor where you can type your commands:

Type : in normal mode to get to the command-line mode

From there, you could enter commands that virtually would do anything. For example, to open a file, type:

:e <filename>

Next, to list which files are currently open, type :ls:

Type :ls to list which files are currently open

We could use the :e[dit] <filename> command to open other files, make our modifications and save them with either :w or :saveas <another-name>. Once done, we quit with the ultra-famous Vim quit command :q!

Searching with / and ?

The two other search-related keywords that get you to the Command-line mode are / (search forward) and ? (search backwards). For example, by typing /praes would highlight the first element found by the search:

Filtering with !

The last way to get to Command-line mode is by typing ! in Normal mode. This operator allows us to filter and run commands on any file opened. For example, for the below file:
Type !sort and let Vim do its magic
If I typed !sort, Vim would automatically sort all the lines alphabetically (since sort is considered a filter):

Some commands you should know

There are so many commands you can use that we'll list some interesting Ex commands you should know.

Editing Files

  • :e <filename> - edits file
  • :bd! - closes the current file (buffer)
  • :ls - lists open files
  • :bn - goes to the next open file
  • :bp - goes to the previous open file

Quitting Vim

  • :q - quit (short for :quit)
  • :q! - quit without saving (short for :quit!)
  • :wq - write and quit
  • :wq! - force write and quit
  • :x - write and quit (similar to :wq, but only write if there are changes)
  • :exit - write and exit (same as :x)
  • :qa - quit all (short for :quitall)
  • :qa! - quit ignoring changes

Searching

To search, use / or ? as previously mentioned. We will cover search and replace more in detail in future posts.

Getting Help

Vim has a number of other methods that you can read about in the help documentation, :h or :help.

Command-Line Completion

It's important to note that Vim also provides you command-line completion via the <Tab> key. For example, if you wanted to change your colorscheme, you could type :colorscheme <Tab> and from there, move to the option you want using the <Tab> key:

Type :colorscheme <Tab> and let Vim complete it for you

Previous Commands

Vim also offers contextual history for previous commands. While in Command-line mode, press the <Up> and <Down> to view previously executed commands.

Getting back to Normal Mode

To get back to Normal mode from Command mode (or one of Vim's other modes), as you might expect, press <Esc> or <Ctrl-C> or <Ctrl-[>.

Learning More

Ready to learn more about the Command mode? Open its dedicated manual with:

:h cmdline-mode

Mode-specific help

If you want to know more about specific keys, Vim also has an intelligent mechanism to get you to the help quickly. It follows this pattern:

What Prepend Example
Normal mode command :help x
Visual mode command v_ :help v_u
Insert mode command i_ :help i_<Esc>
Command-line command : :help :quit
Command-line editing c_ :help c_<del>
Vim command argument - :help -r
Option ' :help 'textwidth'
Regular expression / :help /[

We hope you get used to the above syntax and use it regularly in you your Vim journey. It will not only help you learn more about Vim but also to memorize the commands better.

Conclusion

On this post we continued in our Vim journey by learning a bit more about Vim's Command-Line mode. If it seems complicated, don't be concerned. It takes years to master Vim but be sure that the more you learn, the more you realize that time is that secret ingredient in getting comfortable, becoming proficient and efficient with Vim.

Learning Vim is like learning a musical instrument. It takes time, effort and discipline but once you master it, the gains are endless. You definitely won't regret.

See Also

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Switching Modes in Vim

Learn how to swtich modes in Vim.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

On a previous post we learned about three of the most important foundational concepts of Vim: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions. We also recently reviewed how to install Vim on Macs, Windows or Linux, learned how to get started with Vim and mastered your first Vim tutorial, let's review tips and tricks to keep learning Vim. 

Today we will continue discussing Modes, specifically talking about a common operation in Vim: how to switch modes. But before we continue, let's review what are modes in Vim and which they are.

Modes in Vim

Modes are another feature that differentiates Vim from traditional text editors and something that's important to comprehend. Modes are 

The most common modes are:

  • Normal: Vim's primary mode and the one we use to run commands:
  • Insert: the mode where you edit the contents of your files
  • Visual: visual selection of contents
  • Replace: allows you to type over the text, replacing it
  • Command-line: allows you to execute commands via its own command-line prompt
  • Visual-block: allows you to make block-level changes (vertical selections and modifications)
  • Ex: in this mode Vim emulates the Ex editor and is used mainly for batch processing
  • Select: like the visual mode but with more CUA like behavior.

How to switch Modes in Vim

But understanding Modes is just the first part. Next, you have to understand how to switch between modes. The traditional workflow is to press <Esc> to go back to normal mode then press a keystroke to enter the other mode. Some of the keystrokes you can use to switch between modes are:

  • <Esc> - goes back to normal mode
  • i - enters insert mode (but other keystrokes exist)
  • : - enters command mode (but other keystrokes exist)
  • v - enters visual mode
  • V - enters visual mode (line selection)
  • R - enters command-line mode
  • <Ctrl-v>: enters visual block mode

Switching Modes in Action

So let's see some real use cases. In Vim, open an existing file with :e <filename> and follow the next steps.

Inserting Text in Insert Mode

For every opened file, the default mode is Normal mode. To type modifications in our file, we should either switch to Normal or Replace, Normal being by far the most common one. Some important keywords worth memorizing when switching from Normal to Insert mode are:

  • i - to insert in the current position
  • a - to insert after the next char
  • C - to change from the next char (delete all until the end of the line)
  • S - to substitute the current line (delete the whole line)

Back to Normal Mode

Next, get back to Normal Mode by pressing <Esc>, find the text hello by searching with /hello in normal mode and hit enter to set the cursor in that position.

Replacing text in Replace Mode

In case you want to type over the text, replacing it, press R to enter replace mode, enter your changes and <Esc> again to go back to normal mode.

Back to Normal Mode

Guess how should we get back to Normal Mode? You got it! By pressing <Esc>

Replacing Text using Command Mode

But we could have replaced hello by world using command mode. For example, the command below would run in command mode and would replace all occurrences of the word hello by world in the current buffer:

:%s/hello/world/g

Saving our file

Next, to save our file from Command Mode by typing :w

Quitting

And quit with :q

In which mode am I?

And how do we know in which mode we are? Assuming you're not running any plugins, Vim should show you that in the bottom of the screen:

  • Normal Mode: blank (no info)
  • Insert Mode: -- INSERT --
  • Replace Mode: -- REPLACE --
  • Visual: -- VISUAL LINE --
  • and so on
For example, in insert mode you should see something like:

If that info is not available, try resetting the showmode config with:

:set showmode

Fore more info about that configuration, type:

:h showmode

Conclusion

On this post we reviewed how to switch modes in Vim. We hope that these examples helped you understand better how these modes work in conjunction. We recommend you playing with the modes and getting comfortable with them since they're an essential part of learning and mastering Vim.

See Also

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Vim Modes - All you need to know to get started

When learning Vim, it's important to understand well its Modes, one of Vim's most fundamental concepts.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

On a previous post we learned about three of the most important foundational concepts of Vim: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions. We also recently reviewed how to install Vim on Macs, Windows or Linux, learned how to get started with Vim and mastered your first Vim tutorial. 

Today we will continue our discussion on modes: what they are, what they serve and how to use them.

What are modes in Vim?

Modes are another feature that differentiates Vim from traditional text editors and something that's important to comprehend. Modes are essentially different ways (or modes) Vim can work on. To master (and learn well) Vim it's important to understand not only which they are but how they differ and how they can you help you get your work done.

The most common Modes

Vim has seven basic modes The most common modes are:

  • Normal: Vim's primary mode and the one we use to run commands:
  • Insert: the mode where you edit the contents of your files
  • Visual: visual selection of contents
  • Replace: allows you to type over the text, replacing it
  • Command-line: allows you to execute commands via its own command-line prompt
  • Terminal-Job: allows you to interact with a job in a terminal window
  • Ex: in this mode Vim emulates the Ex editor and is used mainly for batch processing
  • Select: like the visual mode but with more CUA like behavior.

Using the Modes

So let's see some examples in how can you use these modes.

Normal Mode

In normal mode you're not supposed to type text but to send commands to Vim. Some of them are:

  • h - move one character left
  • j - move one line down
  • k - move one line up
  • l - move one character right
  • 0 - move to the beginning of the line
  • $ - move to the end of the line 
  • w move to beginning of next word
  • b move to previous beginning of word
  • gg - move to the beginning of the document
  • G - move to the end of the document
  • u - undo previous change
  • Ctrl-r: redo previous change
  • : - go to ex mode (where you can type commands, for example to quit Vim, save or open a file)
  • ma - creates a mark a
  • `a - moves the cursor to mark a
  • and more, much more
Don't worry, we'll study normal modes in the future

Visual Mode

Press v in normal mode to enter visual mode, then move the arrow with h/j/k/l or with other commands (see above for examples). After you're comfortable with the selection, you can either type y to yank (copy) the text, x to delete it of any other command available in that mode.

We'll study more about the normal mode in the future.

Command Mode

It's also possible to run commands in Vim. That mode is called Command mode (or command-line mote) and to get to it type : while in normal mode. For example, the command below would run in command mode and would replace all occurrences of the word hello by world in the current buffer:

:%s/hello/world/g

Visual Mode

To use the visual mode (similar to the select feature in your text editor can be accomplished by pressing the following keys in normal mode:

  • v - start visual mode from the current character
  • V - start visual mode with line selection

Switching between modes

The last thing is how to switch between modes. The traditional workflow is to press <Esc> to go back to normal mode then press a keystroke to enter the other mode. Some of the keystrokes you can use to switch between modes are:

  • <Esc> - goes back to normal mode
  • i - enters insert mode
  • : - enters command mode
  • v - enters visual mode
  • R - enters command-line mode
  • V - enters visual mode (line selection)
  • <Ctrl-v>: enters visual block mode

In which mode am I?

And how do we know in which mode we are? Assuming you're not running any plugins, Vim should show you that in the bottom of the screen:

  • Normal Mode: blank (no info)
  • Insert Mode: -- INSERT --
  • Replace Mode: -- REPLACE --
  • Visual: -- VISUAL LINE --
  • and so on
For example, in insert mode you should see something like:

If that info is not available, try resetting the showmode config with:

:set showmode

Fore more info about that configuration, type:

:h showmode

Mode-specific help

Vim also has an intelligent mechanism to get you to the help quickly. It follows this pattern:

What Prepend Example
Normal mode command :help x
Visual mode command v_ :help v_u
Insert mode command i_ :help i_<Esc>
Command-line command : :help :quit
Command-line editing c_ :help c_<Del>
Vim command argument - :help -r
Option ' :help 'textwidth'
Regular expression / :help /[

We hope you get used to the above syntax and use it regularly in you your Vim journey. It will not only help you learn more about Vim but also to memorize the commands better.

Conclusion

On this post we learned the most important modes, what they are, what they serve and how to use them.

If it seems complicated, don't be concerned. It takes years to master Vim but be sure that the more you learn, the more you realize that time is that secret ingredient in getting comfortable, becoming proficient and efficient with Vim. Learning Vim is like learning a musical instrument. It takes time, effort and discipline but once you master it, the gains are endless. You definitely won't regret.

See Also

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Fundamental concepts of Vim

When learning Vim, it's important to understand its most fundamental concepts: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Once you installed Vim on Mac, Windows or Linux, learned how to get started with Vim and mastered your first Vim tutorial, the next thing you should learn about Vim is its fundamental concepts: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions.

Commands

Most of the examples you'll see and learn are commands. Commands are operations you run in Vim that can pretty much do everything. For example, the command below, lists the open files:

:ls

Commands can also modify text. For example, the command below would replace all occurrences of the word hello by world in the current buffer:

:%s/hello/world/g

Buffers

Buffers are another essential concept of Vim. You may not have realized it yet but buffers is one of the things in Vim that differs it from traditional text editors.

Every file opened in Vim is opened in a buffer. During that process, Vim copies the contents of that file to memory and uses that until you save your modifications to disk. That way Vim can perform really quick operations on the content you need without reaching the filesystem.

Modes

Modes are another feature that differentiates Vim from traditional text editors and something that's important to comprehend. The most common modes are:

  • Normal: Vim's primary mode and the one we use to run commands:
  • Insert: the mode where you edit the contents of your files
  • Visual: visual selection of contents
  • Replace: allows you to type over the text, replacing it
  • Command-line: allows you to execute commands via its own command-line prompt
  • Visual-block: allows you to make block-level changes (vertical selections and modifications)
  • Ex: in this mode Vim emulates the Ex editor and is used mainly for batch processing
  • Select: like the visual mode but with more CUA like behavior.

Since there's a lot there to learn, try to stick with Normal and Insert for now. We'll see in detail in future posts how each of the mode works but feel free to use the help as explained on a previous post.

Motions

Another fundamental aspect of Vim is the concept of Motions. Motions are parameters that you pass into your commands or actions moving the cursor around (fore or backwards). Motions is another phenomenal feature of Vim's making it way more powerful than  traditional editors. 

Motions can also be combined with operators (we'll learn more about them in the future) so you can run powerful commands like:

dap

which runs a command that can be read as "delete all paragraph".

Conclusion

On this post we introduced three of the fundamental concepts of Vim: Commands, Buffers, Modes and Motions. If it seems complicated, don't be concerned. It takes years to master Vim but be sure that the more you learn, the more you realize that time is that secret ingredient in getting comfortable, becoming proficient and efficient with Vim.

Learning Vim is like learning a musical instrument. It takes time, effort and discipline but once you master it, the gains are endless. You definitely won't regret.

See Also

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