Vim for Vim contains my notes on Vim after watching Lecture 3: Editors (vim) (2020) by Missing Semester.

What is the definition of the word "vim"?

A Google search yields the following:

vim

/vim/

noun INFORMAL

energy; enthusiasm.

"in his youth he was full of vim and vigor"

Origin mid 19th century (originally US): perhaps from Latin, accusative of vis ‘energy’.

"Vim" for Vim, the text editor, therefore, is energy, or enthusiasm, for Vim!

These are the keybindings I have noted so far from watching the aforementioned lecture.

To open Vim, open a Terminal window on MacOS, and type vim, or Vim, or VIM. Capitalization does not seem to matter.

For each of these, we enter the mode on the right by entering the character in parentheses while in the mode on the left.

INSERT MODE (esc)-> NORMAL MODE

NORMAL MODE (:)-> "COMMAND LINE" MODE

NORMAL MODE (c)-> INSERT MODE

• c is followed by its argument, which I think must be a movement command. This command deletes in the direction of the movement command.
  • c can take a, followed by [, (, {, or " when inside square brackets, parentheses, curly braces, or quotation marks respectively, to overwrite the contents inside the square brackets, parentheses, curly braces, or quotation marks, as well as the square brackets, parentheses, curly braces, or quotation marks themselves.
  • c can take i, followed by [, (, {, or " when inside square brackets, parentheses, curly braces, or quotation marks respectively, to modify the contents inside the square brackets, parentheses, curly braces, or quotation marks.

NORMAL MODE (cc)-> INSERT MODE

• This command also deletes the current line if it is nonempty.

NORMAL MODE (i)-> INSERT MODE

NORMAL MODE (o)-> INSERT MODE

• This command creates a new line below the current one.

NORMAL MODE (O)-> INSERT MODE

• This command creates a new line above the current one.

NORMAL MODE (Ctrl + V)-> VISUAL BLOCK MODE, which selects rectangular blocks of text

NORMAL MODE (V)-> VISUAL LINE MODE, which selects lines of text

NORMAL MODE (v)-> VISUAL MODE, which selects text highlighted using movement commands

VISUAL MODE (y)-> NORMAL MODE

• Entering normal mode from visual mode this way copies all of the text highlighted in visual mode.

q quits.

qa quits all.

q! force quits.

qa! force quits all.

sp opens a new window in the current tab.

tabnew opens a new tab.

Normal mode is home, and that's where you should be most of the time.

— Anish, at the 39:44 mark of Lecture 3: Editors (vim) (2020) by Missing Semester

b moves the cursor backward by one word.

d takes a movement command as an argument, and deletes in the direction of that argument.

e moves the cursor to the end of a word.

f takes a character as an argument, and moves the cursor to the first character on the current line equal to its argument.

h moves left!

j moves down!

k moves up!

l moves right!

r takes a character as an argument, and replaces the current character with that argument.

p is for paste!

t takes a character as an argument, and jumps to the next character on the current line immediately before its argument

u undo!

w moves the cursor forward by one word.

x deletes the character over which the cursor is hovering.

y takes a movement command as its argument, and copies text in the direction of its argument.

• For example, ye copies to the end of the word.

F takes a character as an argument, and moves the cursor to the first character on the current line before its argument, like f, above.

G moves all the way down.

H moves the cursor to the highest line shown on the screen.

L moves the cursor to the lowest line shown on the screen.

M moves the cursor to the middle line shown on the screen.

T takes a character as its argument, and moves the cursor back to the first character in front of its argument on the current line.

0 moves the cursor to the beginning of a line.

$ moves the cursor to the end of a line.

% moves the cursor between matching opening and closing parantheses, square brackets, and curly braces.

^ moves the cursor to the first nonempty character on a line.

dd deletes the current line.

gg moves all the way up!

yy copies the current line.

Ctrl + D scrolls down!

Ctrl + R is redo.

Ctrl + U scrolls up!

VISUAL MODE

h moves left!

j moves down!

k moves up!

l moves right!

~ flips the cases of the current selection.

• For example, selecting "Visual Studio Code", and pressing ~ while in visual mode results in "vISUAL sTUDIO cODE".

I hope you find these notes helpful!