Vim cheatsheet

Words of introduction

Vim is considered an advanced editor for programmers and those who mastered Vim rarely would want to switch back.

I was avoiding Vim for some time, instead, I was relying on the IDE capabilities for text editing, but throughout my work experience, I realised one thing - IDEs come and go, while Vim remains. Often I had to switch IDEs and platforms, having to learn shortcuts again and again.

So I took time to master Vim and it turned out to be not so difficult. In fact, most of the Vim power can be unleashed with a very small subset of Vim commands.

I don't see much sense in mastering all the immense capabilities of Vim/IntelliJ/You name it. However, there's a subset that is very useful for me personally. I am using the Vim plugin in VScode and Jetbrains products and customized Vim as well. Below is the list of the commands/shortcuts I personally find useful for me.

To the best of my knowledge, those would work the same both in Vim plugins and Vim itself.

Disclaimer: this is a cheatsheet, not a tutorial, so it assumes the reader has some basic understanding of Vim.

General commands/shortcuts

Those are the very basics things, such as opening the file or escaping Vim.

Basics

Action	Command
Exit w/o saving	:q!
Exit from all splits	qa
Exit and save	:wq!
Go to normal mode	ESC or CTRL+C
Repeat last change	.
Open file	:open {filename}
Execute terminal command	:!command

Splits (tabs)

Action	Command
Open file in vertical split	:vsp {filename}
Navigate between splits	CTRL+W (corresponding arrow)

Visual mode

Visual mode is used to select different parts of texts

Action	Command
go to the character-wise visual mode	v
go to the line-wise visual mode	V
to select "block"	CTRL+v

Multiple cursors

Note: works in VSCode, doesn't work in GVIM

Add multiple cursors

1. Select lines you want to change (using visual mode)
2. type I

Add cursor for word

1. move cursor to the start of the word
2. type gb to add another cursor
3. repeat :) then use c, ESC or d or whatever

Navigating

Navigating by words

Action	Command
next word	w
next WORD	W
previous word	b
previous WORD	B
next end of word	e
jump to matching bracket	%

Navigating by paragraphs

Action	Command
next paragraph	}
previous paragraph	{
go to a specific line	{line}gg

Start/end of line and file

Action	Command
start of the line	0
first non-space symbol of the line	^
end of the line	$
go to the top of the file	gg
go to the end of the file	G

Other

Important: go to the definition (this does not work in GVIM): gd

we can always append numbers, for example:

2w #go to the second word
4(arrow down) #go 4 lines down

Searching

Action	Command
search forward	/{pattern}
search backward	?{pattern}
continue search forward	n
continue search backward	N
find symbol on the line	f{symbol}

Replacing

Action	Command
replace first occurrence of foo with bar	:s/foo/bar/
replace all occurrences of foo with bar in file	:%s/foo/bar/g
replace all occurrences of foo with bar in line	:s/foo/bar/g
replace with empty string	:s/foo//g
replace with confirmation	:s/foo/bar/gc

confirmation mode:

• y replace
• l replace and quit
• n skip
• q quit
• a replace all

Note: search pattern can be regex!

:%s/^foo.*/Vim is the best/gc

Editing text

Insert mode

Action	Command
Go to insert mode	i
Append text at the end of line	A
Add line below and go to insert mode	o
Add line above and go to insert mode	O
Remove last character typed	CTRL+H
Remove last word typed	CTRL+W
Remove last line typed	CTRL+U

Editing commands

Action	Command
copy (yanking)	y
delete	d
replace selected (word, line, whatever)	c
Copy whole line	Y
duplicate line	YP or Yp
delete the whole line	dd
delete paragraph	dp
delete until end of line	D
paste	p
change (similar to d + i)	c
add indentation	>>
remove indentation	<<
format code	==

Registers

• The unnamed register " is where you copy and cut stuff to, when you don’t explicitly specify a register. The default register if you will.
• The named registers a-z are registers you can use explicitly to copy and cut text at will
• The yank register 0 stores the last thing you have yanked (copied)
• The cut registers 1-9 store the last 9 things you cut by using either the delete or the change command

Action	Command
To copy to register	"{register name}y{motion}
To cut to register	"{register name}d{motion}
To paste from register	"{register name}p

Inner/outer

change the text inside quotes: ci"

change the text inside brackets: ci)

change the text inside brackets: ci}

(you get the idea?)

Some general information

Editing commands are used in combination with navigation, just like that:

   what to do (delete, change...)
      /
     /      how many times
    /         /
   v         v
{operator}{count}{motion}
                    ^
                   /
                  /
           where to perform
             the action

For example, delete two words: d2w

Undoing stuff

Undo: u