as I’m going through the process of learning vim, I’m discovering newfound powers. one of them being to execute commands from vim itself.

below examples might better explain some of them:

  1. want to see what files are in current directory? enter command mode(by typing :) and follow it by a bang(!). then do ls like you’d do in a terminal and press enter. this is not limited to just ls. you can enter any command that you can enter in terminal. for example: :! uname --operating-system (which will output GNU/Linux :))

  2. so you want to quickly save just a certain part of your file into another file? just select everything you need by entering visual mode(v) and do :w filename(actual command you’ll see would be '<,'>:w filename). verify it using 1.(i.e., :! cat filename.

  3. want to quickly paste another file into current one? do :r filename. it’ll paste its contents below your cursor.

  4. or maybe you want to paste results of a command? do :r !ls *.png.

vim is my ~ sweet ~ now. make it yours too.

  • khapyman
    101·
    7 months ago

    I will not make vim my sweet as it is optimized for us keyboard. Most of the shortcuts are awful in my native (Finnish) layout. As much of a heretic I am, there is a place for mouse and windowing display managers.

    What I do miss from the Redmont dystopia is Notepad++. Can do anything, can be explained over the phone.

      • khapyman
        21·
        7 months ago

        I have not, and on a glance it looks really interesting, thank you! I will give it a spin and I really hope it is the editor of choice from now on.