04-AdvTradViCommands.md

Advanced Traditional Vi Commands

Much of the information here I obtained from Lagmonster. This site no longer exists. These commands existed in the original ex version of vi. When the behavior differs from the original vi, I will indicate the nvim behavior.

The name vi comes from the "visual interface" for the ex line editor. That is the reason vi's configuration file is called ~/.exrc.

Vi was often called "bi-modal" where normal mode and command mode were conflated together and called "command mode" and insert mode was the second mode.

Normal Mode Commands

Misc commands

Command	Description
<C-g>	show filename and other useful status info
<C-l>	redraw view
ZZ	save changes and exit vim
<C-z>	suspend vim to shell background

For <C-z>, the shell command fg %1 will usually work to unsuspend vim. If you have other things suspended, hunt for it via the jobs shell command.

Commands to move cursor/view in Normal Mode

Command	Description
+	move to first non-space character next line
-	move to first non-space character prev line
nG	move to nth line in file
G	move to last line in file
0	move to beginning of line
H	move to top of screen
M	move to middle of screen
L	move to bottom of screen
nH	move to nth line from top of screen
nL	move to nth line from bottom of screen
<C-u>	move cursor/view up half a screen
<C-d>	move cursor/view down half a screen
<C-b>	move cursor/view up a full screen
<C-f>	move cursor/view down a full screen
<C-e>	move view down a one line, don't move cursor
<C-y>	move view up a one line, don't move cursor
%	move between matching ( ), [ ], { } or < >
n<Bar>	move to nth column in line
<Bar>	move to beginning of line

Where <Bar> = |

Both <C-e> & <C-y> will move cursor to keep it in the view.

With %, if you are not currently on a grouping symbol, move to the first one on the current line and jump to its matching partner. Neovim's treesitter can change the meaning of what is a matching symbol for different file types.

If scrolloff is set in init.vim, some of these commands get modified,

    set scrolloff=3

will keep the cursor 3 lines from the edge of the screen.

Cursor commands useful for written text

Command	Description
(	move cursor to beginning of sentence
)	move cursor to beginning of next sentence
{	move cursor up a paragraph
}	move cursor down paragraph
[[	move cursor to beginning previous section
]]	move cursor to beginning next section

What "section" means is most easily understood in the context of file types. For example, in pre-ANSI K&R C files, [[ and ]] will jump between { which are in the first column. Programmers used these to jump between C functions in source code. For troff files various constructs were understood as defining "sections." Now-a-days, the Marksman Markdown LSP server will cause [[ and ]] to jump between headings.

Commands to change text

Command	Description
C	change from cursor to end of line (enter insert mode)
R	from cursor, overwriting text (enter replace mode)
S	change entire line (enter insert mode)
D	delete from cursor to end of line
I	insert text at beginning of line after initial whitespace
i	enter insert mode
a	advance cursor one char and enter insert mode
A	advance cursor to end of line and enter insert mode
x	delete char at cursor, stay in normal mode
X	delete char before cursor, stay in normal mode
>>	move entire line 1 tab stop right, stay in normal mode
<<	move entire line 1 tab stop left, stay in normal mode

Insert Mode Commands

Command	Description
<C-h>	delete previous character
<BS>	delete previous character
<C-v>{char}	insert character {char} literally
<C-v><Tab>	insert literal <Tab> (handy for makefiles)
<C-w>	delete previous word
<C-u>	delete everything to left of cursor
<C-c>	break out of insert mode, punt on any auto cmds
<C-a>	previous insert
<C-@>	repeat previous insert and return to normal mode
<C-t>	ident line in to next tab stop
<C-d>	ident line out to previous tab stop
<C-e>	copy character which is below cursor
<C-y>	copy character which is above cursor
<C-\>	potentially a good insert mode "leader key"
<C-g>	potentially a good insert mode "leader key"
<C-g>j	move down a line, Down-Arrow not in vi
<C-g>k	move up a line, Up-Arrow not in vi
<C-n>	word completion, next word
<C-p>	word completion, previous word
<C-o>	do one normal mode command & return to insert mode
<C-r>a	paste from register "a while in insert mode

If you accidentally typed <C-x> while in insert mode, typing any non-control character, except s will get you back. If you have terminal flow control turned on, and you hit the unfortunate key combination <C-x><C-s>, something EMACS users are likely to do, you will find your vim editing session frozen. Type <C-q> to unlock.

Insert Mode vs Replace Mode

• replace mode is similar to insert mode but characters are overwritten instead of inserted.
• You can toggle between them via the terminal <Insert> key.
• You can enter replace mode directly from normal mode via the R command.
• Like in insert mode you can navigate around the text via the arrow keys creating multiple undo events.
• In replace mode, <BS> and <C-h> undo only current set of replacements.
  • Otherwise they act like the <LefT> arrow key.

Command Mode Commands

Command	Description
:r file	read file and insert it after current line
:nr file	read file and insert it after line n
:w!	write file overriding normal checks
:n,mw file	save lines n thru m to file
:n,mw >>file	append lines n thru m to existing file
:'a,'bw file	save lines from line with mark a to line with mark b
:e!	reedit file discarding any unsaved changes
:#	show current line number and print line
:.=	show current line number
:=	show number of lines in buffer
:n,md	delete lines n thru m

The :set, :map, and :ab commands are about the only useful things you can put into vi's configuration file, ~/.exrc.

The :set Command

The :set command changes vi's default options. Unlike the vim and nvim commands, there is no '-o' option to set these from the vi command line.

Command	Description
:set list	display <Tab> as ^I and EOL as $
:set nolist	display <Tab> & EOL normally (the default)
:set tabstop=6	set the tab stop to 6 characters
:set ts=2	set the tab stop to 2 characters
:set shiftwidth=4	set indentation to 4 characters (uses tabs & spaces)
:set	show all options differing from the defaults
:set all	show all options and their set values
:set ts?	query the value of the tabstop option

The map: Command

The :map command is the only member of the map family of commands in the original vi. It seems to behavior differently for nvim than vi.

    :map a 2l`
    :map l 5k`

• In nvim: a in normal mode moves the cursor up 25 lines (not 10).
• In vi: a and l both move the cursor up 5 lines.

Take away: Neovim uses lexical substitution, not recursive application. Vi is just buggy.

Almost always, :noremap is the better choice for vim and nvim.

The :ab Command

The vi :ab command stands for :abbreviate. It works in both insert mode and command mode.

   :ab fb foo bab

• When fb is typed, vi replaces it with foo bar
• When fb<CR> is typed, vi replaces it with foo bar<CR>

As with :set and :map, the :ab command is part a of a much larger family of commands in Vim and Neovim.

    :iab teh the
    :cab d2f .,$/^foo/d`

When teh is typed in insert mode, it is replaced by the .

When d2f is typed in command mode, all lines from current line thru the next line starting with foo are deleted.

Note: If you use <space> as your leader key, the :abbreviate command will only work when triggered with <CR>.

Marks

Command	Description
ma	set mark a for the current editing buffer
`a	jump to mark a current buffer
'a	jump to first non-space char in line with mark a
y`a	yank from cursor to mark a
c`a	change from cursor to mark a
d`a	delete from cursor to mark a
d'b	deletes current line to mark b
d`b	deletes current line thru line with mark b

Like a mark, the cursor is also a "zero-width" entity between the highlighted character and the preceding character. If the mark is before the cursor in the file, the selection does not contain the highlighted character. Just like the behavior of the yb normal mode command.

For more information on marks, see the marks section in Vim Specific Features.

---

| prev: Vim Factoids | Home | next: Ex Mode |