At the beginning of my coding journey like most others one of my first steps was to download VSCode onto my computer.
It wasn't until a few months into learning how to code that I learned of a program that was already on my computer that completely changes the way you interact with a text editor.
That text editor is Vim and after seeing some of the benefits it could give to power users. I decided to give it a shot.
After the initial cobwebs wore off I found that after just a few days there were some tasks I was already faster at doing compared to in VSCode which although new was a UI I had been interacting with almost my whole life. The ability to jump to any point on the page with just a few key strokes felt like I was was Neo in The Matrix.
There are seven basic modes in vim but when first starting out I'd advice for you to just focus on these three
- command mode (moving with the keyboard)
- insert mode (typing in the text editor)
- visual mode (used to selected characters ex. copy, paste, etc.
... and here are some key-binds to get you going
- switch between command mode and insert mode with i
- switch between insert mode and command mode with Esc
- navigate up in command mode with k
- navigate down in command mode with j
- navigate left in command mode with h
- navigate right in command mode with l
- save with :w followed by enter
- to quit without saving :q! or ZQ
- undo with u
- redo with Ctrl+r
- to save AND quit :wq
In conclusion if you've been thinking of giving vim a try or this is your first time hearing about it just learning the basics can be beneficial and who knows you might just find that you prefer it!
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