Vim Magic • Javier Donado - Product Engineering - Apps | Posts

I’ve been using the Vim editor for a while, and I really like it. However, it’s true that the learning curve is steep. With so many options, even after years of use, you can still discover new tricks.

This is a compilation of my favorite commands, which I’ll continue updating as I discover more (think of this as my personal quick reference).

Normal Mode

Editing Magic

vi" – Select everything inside ". Also works with parentheses, brackets, tags, etc.
di" – Delete everything inside ".
da" – Delete everything inside " and include the surrounding " as well.
CTRL+v – Start visual mode, selecting columns.
=<next position> – Indent to the next position.
zz – Scroll the current line to the center of the window.
zt – Scroll the current line to the top of the window.
zb – Scroll the current line to the bottom of the window.
cs"' – Change surrounding double quotes to single quotes (requires surround.vim).
/\csearchString – Perform a case-insensitive search.
/\CsearchString – Perform a case-sensitive search.

Marks

mk – Mark the current position as k (or any other lowercase letter).
mK – Mark the current position as K. Uppercase marks are global and persist across files.
'k – Jump to the position marked as k.

Folds

zf'k – Fold lines up to the k mark.
zo – Open folded code.
zc – Close folded code.
za – Toggle folded code.

Sessions

:mks ~/.vim/foo.vim – Save the current Vim session.
:source ~/.vim/foo.vim – Restore a saved session.

Tabs

gT – Go to the previous tab.
gt – Go to the next tab.
:tabfind <TAB> – Find a file with autocompletion and open it in a new tab.

Splitting

:vsplit – Split the screen vertically.
:split – Split the screen horizontally.

Other Commands

:echo $VIM – Display the path to the Vim configuration file (usually ~/.vimrc).
:!command – Run a Unix command.
:!! – Replace the selection with the output of the last command.
:e . – Open the file explorer in the current directory.
:find *.js <TAB> – Find files with the .js extension using autocompletion.
:b <TAB> – Reopen previously opened files from the buffer.
:ls – List previously opened files.
:vert diffs otherfile – Diff the current file against otherfile.

Edit Mode

<CTRL>n – Autocomplete suggestions.

Custom Settings

Save these settings in your ~/.vimrc file:

syntax on – Enable syntax highlighting.
set number – Show line numbers.
set autoindent – Enable auto-indentation.
set path+=** – Include subdirectories when searching for files.
set wildmenu – Display a menu helper for file/directory autocompletion.
set nocompatible – Ignore compatibility with older versions of vi.
set smartcase – Perform case-insensitive searches unless capital letters are used.
set wildignore+=**/node_modules/** – Exclude directories (e.g., node_modules) from searches.
set wrap linebreak nolist – Enable word wrap.

Exporting Your Configuration

You can save and synchronize your Vim configuration across machines by turning your ~/.vim directory into a Git repository. Push it to a platform like GitHub.
You can find my repository here, with instructions in the README for setup.

…and Of Course

:q! – Don’t get stuck in Vim. Exit without saving. :)

References

Back to the top ↑