Vim Cheat Sheet

Published over 6 years ago

Some of these commands and shortcuts are based off my own .vimrc file, so it may not work for your setup when you try performing some of the below commands.

MacVim/Gvim

  • :Gblame
  • :Ag count app/controllers
  • :%s/word/love/gc
  • :Ag #navigation-wrapper app/assets/stylesheets
  • Nerd Tree - space + n
  • Fuzzy Search - space + t

Macros

  • q w (then do the commands you'd like repeated)
  • hit q again to stop recording
  • @w (to initiate most recent macro)
  • 99 @w (repeats said action 99 times)

Word Casing

  • Highlight word then g + U to upper case all letters in the word
  • Highlight word then g + u to lower case all letters in the word
  • Change all words in ruby code block to upper case where cursor is at: g + U + r
  • Change all words in ruby code block to lower case where cursor is at: g + u + r
  • End of the file: shift + g
  • Next line: j
  • Go down a defined number of lines: number + j
  • Skip to next word: w
  • Skip back a word: b
  • Skip to next section: W
  • Skip back to previous section: B
  • Go to end of the line: $
  • Go to beginning of the line: 0
  • Go to top of the screen: shift + h
  • Go to bottom of the screen: shift + l
  • Forward multiple words: 5w
  • Forward multiple letters: 5l
  • Back multiple letters: 5h
  • Forward to the next 'y': fy (case sensitive)

Replay

  • Repeat last command: .

Editing

  • Undo: u
  • Redo: ctrl + r
  • Inserting text where the cursor is: i
  • Inserting text at the start of the line: I
  • Insert at the end of the line: shift + a
  • Copy entire line: yy or Y
  • Paste copied line: p
  • Change multiple words: 5cw
  • Insert at the end of the line: A
  • Jump to certain character on line: f + char

Deleting

  • d<leftArrow> will delete current and left character
  • d$ will delete from current position to end of line
  • d^ will delete from current backward to first non-white-space character
  • d0 will delete from current backward to beginning of line
  • dw deletes current to end of current word (including trailing space)
  • db deletes current to beginning of current word
  • Delete current line: dd
  • Join the line below: shift + j
  • Delete entire word: cw
  • Delete to the end of the line: shift + C
  • Delete multiple lines: d + number of lines + enter
  • Delete from current position to a specific line number: d<line number>G
  • Deleting all items in a file that start with a pattern: :g/< search term>/d
  • Deleting all lines that are empty or that contain only whitespace: :g/^\s*$/d
  • Deleting entire variable including @: c + i + W
  • Delete but stay in normal mode: d + i + w
  • Change in a set of boundaries: c + i + '. Will delete everything within two single quotes.

Selecting

  • Select the entire line: V
  • Select a range of text: v
  • Select a column: control + v
  • Reselect a block: gv
  • Select all: ggVG
  • Select current word - v + i + W

Find and Replace

  • %s/pattern/text to replace

Saving

  • Save the file: :w
  • Save the file and quit: :wq
  • Quit without saving: :q!
  • space + w with dotfiles

Views

  • Use horizontal split: :sp filename
  • Use vertical split: :vsp filename
  • Switch from top to bottom: control + w + j
  • Switch from left to right: control + w + l
  • Switch from bottom to top: control + w + j
  • Switch from right to left: control + w + h
  • While on current line: f + <queried item>
  • Search for word in file: /word + enter
  • Find next search result: n
  • Search backwards: N
  • Go to first result: ggn
  • Go to last result: GN
  • To remove search highlighting: :noh

Modes

  • Normal
  • Insert
  • Visual
  • Replace
  • Command Line

Multiple Files

  • :e filename - Edit a file in a new buffer
  • :bnext (or :bn) - go to next buffer
  • :bprev (of :bp) - go to previous buffer
  • :bd - delete a buffer (close a file)
  • :sp filename - Open a file in a new buffer and split window
  • ctrl + ws - Split windows
  • ctrl + ww - switch between windows
  • ctrl + wq - Quit a window
  • ctrl + wv - Split windows vertically

Indenting

  • Fix indenting when pasting: set paste in .vimrc file
  • Indenting: visual mode + > or <
  • Indent entire line(s) left: shift + <<
  • Indent entire line(s) left: shift + >>

Commenting/Uncommenting

  • Comment: visual block select with CTRL-V then I# (insert # in the begining)
  • Uncomment: visual block select with CTRL-V then X (delete the first symbol on the line)
  • Special command when highlighted: gc
  • Select blocks and insert # in front of them control + v then select lines then I + # then hit esc

Visual Mode

  • Changing multiple lines of text: control + v + shift + i + action + esc
  • Select elements in paragraph: v + / + content

Display settings

  • Turning on line numbers: :set nu
  • Turning on syntax highlighting: :syntax on

Reseting Vim Settings

cd
mv .vimrc .vimrc-old
mv .vim .vim-old
touch .vimrc; mkdir .vim

Help

  • To get help: :h <topic>
  • To exit help: :bd

Removing blocks of text in code files

  • c + i + t will remove the code between HTML tags, such as: <div>Some content</div>
  • c + i + } will remove the code inside of a JavaScript function

Dotfiles

Clone Github dotfiles.

Gvim Hotkeys

ciw  # cut and paste word
csw X  # surround with with ( " ' or anything desired character
dt shift+$  # delete to end of line

Registers