The original VIsual editor

Tips and tricks

Scroll,

^D  scroll down

^U  scroll up

Edit several files,

vi *pattern*

write and switch to the next one,

:wn

Substitute,

:%s/lala/lili/

:%s/lala/lili/g

Note. just like with sed

Show all characters,

:set list

Convert file to UNIX format,

:set ff=unix

:wq

VIM configuration

Turn the freacking colors off, and disable the damn ~ backup files,

vi ~/.vimrc

like,

cd ~/

ls -l .vimrc

cat > ~/.vimrc <<EOF9

syn off

set nobackup

set nowritebackup

EOF9

VIM specific usage

Select a block of lines,

V

select a block of text,

v

Indent,

>

deindent,

<

Those ones may help too,

set ai tw=74 et sw=4 sts=4:

Disable UTF-8,

set encoding=iso-8859-15

and for good,

filetype on

autocmd FileType html set fileencoding=iso-8859-1

VI versions

Basics

To enter editing mode,

i  insert before

a  insert after

A  insert end of line

To go back to command mode,

ESC

Cursor

h  left

j  down (remember: just like J goes down!)

k  up

l  right

Edit,

x    delete

rX    replace one caracter by X

ce (de a)  replace until the end of the word

c$    replace until the end of the line

Write,

:w filename

:wq

:x

Exit without saving,

:q!

Undo/Redo,

u  undo

U  redo

Links

(FR) Aide-mémoire Vi : www.epons.org/vi.php