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Vim is a popular text editor designed for efficient text editing right from the terminal. It is an advanced version of the Vi editor and is supported on different operating systems, such as macOS, BSD, Windows, and Linux. Vim is mainly known as the programmer’s tool, as it has many features that allow quick text editing. The Vim editor community has many plugins to improve its capabilities. Many users prefer the Vim editor because of its flexibility and various features. However, there are basic Vim editor commands that everyone must know. So, let’s look at these commands and keyboard shortcuts you can use to work on the Vim editor efficiently. Basic Shortcuts of Vim Editor Remember, the Vim editor isn’t a pre-installed utility. Hence, we recommend reading this guide to install the Vim editor before proceeding to the next step. Now, let’s start by creating the “example.txt” file using the following command: vim example.txt Here, you can add the text and navigate to the lines through the below-given keys: Keys Description H Move left L Move right K Move up J Move down W Go forward to the start of any word B Go backward to the start of any word E Go forward to the end of any word O Move to the start of a line $ Move to the end of a line G Move to the last line of the whole text gg Go to the first line of the whole text Once you know how to navigate between lines, characters, and words, it is time to understand the keyboard shortcuts to edit the text. So here is the complete cheat sheet to edit the text using simple shortcuts in the Vim editor: I Key: If you want to enter text before your cursor, press the I button on the keyboard, and you will see “Insert” in the window. For example, let’s add “Important” word before the paragraph, so we have to press the I key and start typing the text: After inserting the text, please press Escape (Esc) key to exit the Insert mode. O Key: By simply pressing the O key, you can efficiently open a new line below the current line. Shift + O Keys: It will open the new line above the current line. A Key: Press the A key to access the Insert mode and add the text after the cursor. Shift + A Keys: Press the Shift plus A keys to insert the text at the end of a line. Shift/CTRL + R Keys: The R key shortcut only replaces a single character, but if you want to replace multiple characters, press the Shift or CTRL + R keys. CW Shortcut: Press the C and then W keys to delete the entire word. After pressing these keys, you can enter the Insert mode to replace the whole word. CC Shortcut: The CC shortcut is similar to CW but will delete the entire line and let you add a new one. X Key: You can press the X key to delete a specific character at the cursor. However, make sure you are not in the Insert mode. Shift + X Keys: You can press the Shift and X keys to delete a specific line at the cursor. DD Shortcut: This shortcut will delete the entire line. Furthermore, if you want to delete multiple lines, press the number on the keyboard in the correct order. For example, if you want to delete five lines, press D, 5, and D in the same order. DW Shortcut: The DW shortcut will delete the entire word. YW Shortcut: This shortcut is called Yank, and it copies a word. YY Shortcut: This shortcut will copy a line. P Key: It will paste the text at the end of the particular paragraph. Shift + P Keys: The text will be pasted into the paragraph above. Essential Commands of Vim Editor :set nu: You can use this command to display the line number in the editor: :set nu!: Similarly, you can remove the line numbers. :{line number}: Use this command when you want to go to a specific line number. For instance, type 17 to redirect to the 17th line. :set mouse=a: This command will enable the mouse, and you can use it to copy and paste text. Moreover, you can also select the specific text and replace it with something else: :%s/old/new/g: You can use this command to replace a specific word with another. For example, let’s replace the word “Linux” with “OS” using the following command: :%s/Linux/OS/g In the above command, s stands for “substitute,” and % specifies the number of lines the command should implement the change. That’s why, if you want to replace the word in all the lines, use % or specify the line number instead. Moreover, g is “global.” which replaces all occurrences of old in the complete document. Additional Shortcuts Now, you can use a few additional shortcuts to find the texts and save the text file in the Vim text editor. /<text>: Press the / key and enter the text you want to search. This command will perform the forward search. ?<text>: Similarly, you can use ?<text> to perform a backward search. :w: You can use this command to write or save the file without exiting the Vim editor. :wq: If you want to save and quit the file in the Vim editor, please use the :wq command. :q: If you want to quit the text editor, please use the :q command, but save the file first, or it will show you the error. :q!: Finally, if you want to force quit and discard unsaved changes, please use :q! command. Wrapping Up So this was the complete guide about the basic vim editor commands you need to know to become an expert. You can use the Vim text editor to perform editing tasks and enhance productivity efficiently. Hence, we recommend learning these shortcuts and commands if you frequently use the Vim editor in terminal environments. View the full article

The post Vim Mastery Continues: 8 More Powerful Tips for Linux Admins (Part 2) first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides .In the previous article of this series, we reviewed 7 tips and tricks to add to your vi/m skill set, besides the reasons given previously, The post Vim Mastery Continues: 8 More Powerful Tips for Linux Admins (Part 2) first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides.View the full article

The post Learn Useful ‘Vi/Vim’ Tips and Tricks for Beginners – Part 1 first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides .The need to learn how to use text editors in Linux is indisputable, as every system administrator deals with configuration (plain text) files daily, and The post Learn Useful ‘Vi/Vim’ Tips and Tricks for Beginners – Part 1 first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides.View the full article

Different programming languages as well as file types may require different configurations for things like indention and keyword pairings. You might need to alter your template based on what your clients want. Additionally, you might want to change or add new commands. Vim is a command-line editor for Linux systems. It has a strong distinction for being the most potent text editor available for Linux. The Vim text editor uses a file called a VIMRC file as a configuration file. It saves the editor’s preferences which are loaded whenever the editor is accessed. Given that the VIMRC files are saved as plain text, any text editor can be employed to open and modify them. The VIMRC file enables the users to change the editor’s preferences. In this article, we will learn to customize Vim with the vimrc configuration file. Creating the Vimrc File You can utilize all of Vim’s features by customizing your .vimrc file. To configure the vimrc file, we first need to create it in the home directory of our system. Access the terminal and use the following instructions to generate your .vimrc file: omar@omar-VirtualBox:~$ vim .vimrc As you hit “Enter”, a Vim new screen appears. You would notice the “.vimrc” in the lower-left corner. This is our newly created vimrc file in Vim. To save and exit the file state, just type the “:wq” command. Pressing “Enter” brings you back to the terminal. Now that our vimrc configuration file is successfully created, we look for its customization options. Enabling the Syntax Highlighting in Vim To demonstrate the syntax highlighting feature of Vim, we first create a file with some code in it. We create a “.py” Python file and clone some Python code into it as a dummy data. We name the file as “example.py” and save it in the “Desktop” directory. Now, to edit this file in the Vim text editor, we need to open it in Vim. Launch the terminal and execute the following command: omar@omar-VirtualBox:~$ vim ./Desktop/example.py Here, the “vim” command indicates that the specified file is opened in the Vim editor. Then, we provide the path of the file as “./Desktop/example.py”. As we press “Enter”, the Vim editor opens the file. The file content is displayed in the basic format in the previous screenshot. There is no highlighting for the syntax on the code. To enable the syntax highlighting feature in Vim, we exit the file by typing “:wq” and open the .vimrc file again from the terminal with the same command: omar@omar-VirtualBox:~$ vim .vimrc The .vimrc configuration file is opened. We switch the mode of operation to INSERT mode by simply hitting “i”. Now, type “syntax on” and switch back to the command mode again by pressing the “Esc” key. Type the “:wq” command to save the changes that are made in the .vimrc file and exit. We successfully enabled the syntax highlighting feature in Vim. Now, to check if it is enabled, we open the “example.py” file again from the terminal. omar@omar-VirtualBox:~$ vim ./Desktop/example.py This opens the specified file and checks if the syntax highlighting is working on it. The snapshot of the Vim window shows the code with its syntax which is highlighted this time to show that the syntax highlighting feature is currently enabled on Vim. Setting the Line Numbers in Vim When finding some specific code line, we look at or ask someone for it. It gets difficult to count the line number manually. Vim provides us with a feature by which we can turn the line numbering on to easily navigate through the file. We enable this feature in the .vimrc configuration file. Let’s open the .vimrc file again, switch to INSERT mode, and type “set number”: Save the changes and exit the file. Now, open the file from the terminal to see if the line numbering is activated or not. Initially, the file does not contain the line numbers. But as we enable the number feature on Vim, we can now easily navigate through the code lines. Cursor Highlighting in Vim Another functionality that Vim provides us is highlighting the cursor line. When this feature is enabled, we can immediately locate where the cursor is currently in. To activate this function, open the .vimrc file and type “set cursorline” in edit mode. Save the changes and quit the file by writing the “:wq” command. Again, open the “example.py” file to see if the changes are implemented. In the previous image, we can see that the cursor line is activated. This line is horizontal since we are highlighting the cursor line. Here, the cursor is on line number 9. So, a cursor line is drawn beneath it. Along with a horizontal cursor line, we can also highlight the cursor vertically. We discover the cursor’s precise location concerning line and column. Open the .vimrc file and type “set cursorcolumn”. When making modifications to the .vimrc file, don’t forget to save them. Now, after quitting the file, open the “example.py” file. The cursor highlighting feature is activated both horizontally and vertically on our Vim. The previous image shows the exact position of the cursor in the file. Searching in Vim Vim allows us to search within a text file in the most efficient way. The search feature instantly starts highlighting the word at the very moment that you type it for search. In the .vimrc file, type “set incsearch” and save the changes. Apart from the previously-elaborated features, Vim provides us with a long list of great functionalities. We can also set the shift width, tab width, nobackup, nowrap, and many more according to your need. Conclusion This article talks about the customization of the Vim editor in the .vimrc configuration file. Different configuration settings are discussed in this lesson. We initially defined the .vimrc configuration file and implemented the different commands on it to customize our Vim editor. The creation of the vimrc file is explained. The enabling of different features in Vim like syntax highlighting, numbering lines, cursor line and cursor column highlighting, and setting the text search are implemented practically in the Vim text editor in this article. View the full article

There are many text editors like nano, vim, mu but the most used and recommended text editor for the Raspberry Pi and other Debian-based distributions is the VIM text editor. In this write-up, we will explore how we can install and use Vim editor on Raspberry Pi: What Is a Vim Text Editor Vim is the updated version of Vi editor which is used to write, edit, and modify different text files. The Vim editor is a command-line tool that is also known as an IDE as it supports different programming languages like Python and C++ which are not only compiled but also can debug codes, moreover, the Vim text editor is supported by almost all Debian-based Linux distributions. The Vim editor has two different modes, one is known as “Insert” mode and the other is known as the “Command” mode. We can enter by pressing the “I” key of the keyboard and can type different scripts or modify the scripts. In command mode, we can manage the VIM editor by different commands and can go to the command mode simply by pressing the “ESC” key. How to Install the VIM Text Editor on Raspberry Pi We can install the Vim editor on the Raspberry Pi operating system by executing some simple commands, but before proceeding towards the installation of Vim, we will make sure the all the packages of a repository are up to date using the command: $ sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y For the installation of the Vim text editor on the Raspberry Pi, we will use the following command: $ sudo apt install vim -y To confirm the installation of the Vim, we will check the version of the installed Vim text editor using the command: $ vim --version How to Create Text Files Using the Vim Editor on Raspberry Pi To create the text files using the Vim editor, we will execute the following command to create a text file, let’s say, we make a text file with the name of “myFile1.txt”: $ vim myFile1.txt Type “I/i” to initialize the insert mode of Vim editor and type the following script: Welcome to the LinuxHint This article is about the VIM editor VIM is the advanced form of Vi editor To save the file and exit the editor, first press the “ESC” key and then type “wq” in the command mode, and press the “ENTER” key: We will use the cat command to display the newly created file “myFile1.txt”: $ cat myFile1.txt How the VIM Editor Can Behave As IDE in the Raspberry Pi As we said in the above section, the Vim editor is not only used for the text files but can also be used as an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), in which it not only compiles the files of different programming languages but also runs the code after debugging it. To understand this, we will create a Python program to display the “Welcome to LinuxHint” and for a creation of a python file with the name of “myFile.py”, we use the command: $ vim myFile.py Type the following script: print(“Welcome to LinuxHint”) To execute the myFile.py, run the command: $ python myFile.py What Are the Basic Commands for the Vim Text Editor There are different commands which are used to manage the Vim text editor, but the basic commands which a beginner user should know are explained in this section. To save and quit the file in a Vim editor: There are various commands for saving the file and exit from the text editor which is described in the table: w To save the file in the Vim editor q To exit the Vim editor wq To save the file and exit the Vim editor q1 To exit the editor without saving the file To rename a file in Vim editor: To rename a file, type the “w” in the command line and a new name for the file, for example, we changed the file name of myFile1.txt to myFile2.txt: To confirm the above changes, we will open the file using the command: $ cat myFile2.txt Set the numbers with the lines of VIM editor: We can set the numbers with every line of the text file using the following command in the command mode: :set number To compare different files using the VIM editor : We can compare the different files using the VIM editor, for example, we will compare the myFile1.txt and myFile2.txt using the command: $ vimdiff myFile1.txt myFile2.txt The lines which are different in both files are highlighted in the output. Conclusion One of the most recommended text editors for the Raspberry Pi operating system is the Vim text editor which can be used to create and manage the text files as well as to compile and execute the code files of different programming languages. In this write-up, we have explained the installation and usage of the Vim text editor on the Raspberry Pi operating system. View the full article