Advanced VIM

Text Objects

word

• viw selects inner word with the cursor on it
  • v stands for visual mode
  • i stands for inner
  • w stands for word
• vaw selects a full word with the following space
  • a stands for visualize around a word
• diw deletes inner word; daw deletes a word

WORD

The difference between word is that WORD is everything delimited by spaces and word can be a piece of chars, a dot, a slash... And has the same commands as word.

paragraph

• vip selects a paragraph; vap selects also the next empty line

sentence

Like paragraph but selects until a dot.

• giUs makes a sentence Uppercase
• das deletes around a sentence

tags

• vit selects a tag, what is inside <a>X</a> for example
• vat selects also the tag itself (opening and ending)
• vi{X} selects inner X
  • vi( selects the arguments of a function for example
  • vi{ selects the content of the function for example.
• Also, b refers to ( and B to {, so viB selects the content of a function

Autocommands

It's a way to launch some commands when an event happens. The format is:

autocmd event pattern command

For example:

autocmd BufRead,BufWritePre *.html normal gg=G

The way to read this is: When BufRead or BufWritePre (when reads a file or writes a file) with the pattern *.html, execute a normal command, gg=G, in this case it will autoindent all the file from the beginning to the end.

The list of events is in :help autocmd-events

Another example, this will comment out a line in a html file with c au Filetype html nnoremap <leader>c I<!--<esc>A--><esc>

• augroups It's a way to join some autocommands in a group. Ex:

  augroup JavaScript Cmds
    au Filetype javascript nnoremap <leader>r :!node %<cr>
    au Filetype javascript nnoremap <leader>c I//<esc>
  augroup END
  

• autocmd! deactivates the commands inside a group

Registers

• :registers show your registers in the vimrc and the saved ones
• "add adds a deleted line in register "a; "ap pastes register a
• Everything you yenk (yy) is copied also in register 0
• You can record a macro and it will be saved in a register, so you can edit that register to add or remove anything and save in that register again

Actions in insert mode

• Ctrl+h backspace; Ctrl+w backspace a word; Ctrl+w backspace a line
• Ctrl+v{X} writes character X in unicode
• Ctrl+o you can move a line with hjkl.
• Ctrl+r{X} prints register X
• Ctrl+r= to write something that can be evaluated, like a multiplication

More in regexp

• Useful remappings:

  nnoremap / /\v
  vnoremap / /\v
  nnoremap ? ?\v
  vnoremap ? ?\v
  

More useful stuff

• gj and gk moves a visual line, so it's very useful when you have wrapped text
• g0 and g$ moves to the beginning and end of a visual line
• gf opens a file if the word where the cursor lays is the name of a file
• r replaces a letter; R enters in replace mode
• zz moves a line to the middle of the window
• in visual mode, o toggles the cursor in opposite corners; O toggles the cursor in the same line
• . repeats last change
• A; adds ; to the end of the line
• fs jumps to the next s; ; jumps to the next one; , to the previous
• \* search for what is under the cursor; # searchs for the previous
• % in a parenthesys jumps to the ending one

Functions

Example of function, call with :call AddHelloToTop(). The ! replaces the function so you can resource it without errors

function! AddHelloToTop ()
    normal HOhello thereA vim user0
    s/hello there/hi
    return "we added a message"
endfunction

If we add command! Hello call AddHelloToTop() we can use :Hello or also do something like nnoremap <leader>h :call AddHelloToTop()<cr> and use h

Better Autocompletion in VIM

function! InsertTabWrapper()
    let col = col(".") - 1
    if !col || getline(".")[col -1] !~ '\k'
        return "\<tab>"
    else
        return "\<c-n>"
endfunction

inoremap <tab> <c-r>=InsertTabWrapper()<cr>
inoremap <s-tab> <c-p>

Language-Specific Settings

Just create a folder under .vim called ftplugin and, inside this one, one called javascript.vim. Put some settings there, and this will be only applied to .js files. Same with css.vim, html.vim, etc etc.

Abbreviations

It's useful to fix some common problems when writting :abbrev teh the will fix teh with the inoreabbrev teh the will do the same in .vimrc :unabbrev the gets rid of it

Status line

:set laststatus=2 shows the status line always :set statusline=%f\ \ line:%l/%L\ col:%c\ %p%%\ %y

Node debugging in VIM

npm install -f vimdebug more info After that, you can debug a file with node-vim-inspector file.js and launch vim -nb in another term to launch the file. Shortcuts are:

  Ctrl+c -> continue
  Ctrl+i -> step in
  Ctrl+o -> step over
  Ctrl+n -> step next
  Ctrl+u -> move one stack frame up
  Ctrl+d -> move one stack frame down
  Ctrl+p -> set breackpoint at current location