Effective Vim

Being a fan of Steve Yegge, I was
randomly reading some of his older writings and eventually chanced
upon his post on “Effective
Emacs”. Being
a Vim guy, I wondered whether some of the tips he presents are useful
for the Vim world as well.

Note: This is not a Vim vs Emacs thing, it is simply a porting of
tips for Emacs to see whether the tips are useful for Vim users as
well.

So here goes:

10 Specific Ways to Improve Your Productivity With Emacs, ported to Vim:

Item 1: Swap Caps-Lock and Control

This is a desktop-specific customization. However, I don’t think it is
required for Vim users, but it can be
useful.

Update: After using for a couple of days, I’m really starting to like this!

Item 2: Invoke M-x without the Alt key

Not relevant for Vim. Not a good start, first two tips are out…

Item 3: Prefer backward-kill-word over Backspace

This is a good tip. Normally, I would use bdw to achieve the same.
To map backspace to this command in normal mode, put this in
your vimrc: :map <bs> bdw.

To make it work in insert mode you can put :imap <bs> <esc>bdwa. I’m
sure there’s a better way to use just one command to do this, please
leave a comment if you know of a better way.

Update: You can also use ctrl-w in insert mode (see :help i_CTRL-W),
thanks to pimaniac.

Item 4: Use incremental search for Navigation

Use :set incsearch.
Press n to search forward and N to search backward.

Item 5: Use Temp Buffers

Run :new to get a new buffer (or alternately ctrl-w n).
To switch between buffers, use ctrl-w ctrl-w (yes, twice).
Use :q as usual to close the buffer (or alternately, ctrl-w q).

Item 6: Master the buffer and window commands

• To split window vertically, run :vsp
• To split window horizontally, run :sp
• To make all visible windows approximately equal height, run ctrl-w =
• To switch to other window, run ctrl-w ctrl-w or use the
  directional keys ctrl-w h/j/k/l
• To delete other windows, use ctrl-w o or run :only
• To list-buffers, run :ls (or even :files or :buffers)
• Dialog Boxes: The Root of All Evil – agree, Vim doesn’t need dialog
  boxes as well (at least in the non-gui mode)
• Buffers to the Rescue – Same thing for Vim, I think.

Item 7: Lose the UI

• Remove the menubar using :set guioptions-=m.
• Remove the toolbar using :set guioptions-=T.
• Similar options exist for the scrollbar, see :help guioptions
• Region selection can be easier in Vim using the visual mode, just
  press v, use the normal keys to move around, such as 10j to move
  down by 10 lines, and then a command to work on that visual
  selection, such as d to delete it.

Item 8: Learn the most important help functions

The help in Vim is vast, see :help usr_toc to see the chapters of
the awesome reference manual.

Item 9: Master Emacs’s regular expressions

I agree, Friedl’s book is the authority on this. However, there are
some good introductions to Vim regular
expressions available.

Item 10: Master the fine-grained text manipulation commands

• Creating macros are easy in Vim. Press qa to start recording
  a macro called ‘a’, do all the commands you want to run, pres q to
  stop recording. Then, run @a to repeat the recorded commands i.e.
  a macro.
• Swapping two adjacent words, yeah, this can be better. I use xp to
  swap characters and dwwP to swap words, but it doesn’t do fancy
  stuff like the transpose-* functions. This can be an interesting
  plugin to write.

Tune in next time…

1. Filling paragraphs can be done by setting :set textwidth=80 and
   running gqap command to format ‘a’ ‘p’aragraph, or like me you
   can map the ‘Q’ key to run it : :nmap Q gwap. To make this work
   inside comments, make sure you :set formatoptions+=c.
2. gnuserv : I use It’s All
   Text! Firefox
   extension.
3. Dired : There are plugins available with
   similar
   functionality
4. Whitespace manipulation – plenty of ways such as :set expandtab,
   :retab!, :help fo-table, etc.
5. nxml-mode : I haven’t used nxml-mode but I’m still looking for
   something like Emacs’ SGML-mode that works for Vim. I miss you,
   SGML-mode.
6. picture-mode : Dr. Chip to the rescue with
   DrawIt.vim
7. minibuffer management : Not sure what this is.
8. effortless navigation : I think Vim has enough keys for this by
   default. See :help navigation.
9. region management : We can always choose the color scheme of choice
   for the highlighted region, or change it ourselves, see `:help

:highlight`.

1. rectangle commands : Use ctrl-v
2. emacs shells : We have :sh but don’t know if Emacs does
   something more
3. align-regexp : Not sure what this is.
4. frame initialization : I set Vim to always opens in full screen,
   see :help win16-maximized. Not sure how to do it in Linux yet,
   but in Gnome, I just press Alt-F10.
5. using the goal column : No idea…
6. setting the fill column : Nada…
7. OS settings and font : I like to customize Vim’s font and keep
   trying different
   fonts, currently
   I’m using :set guifont=Consolas:h14:cANSI
8. browsing and editing archives : I think Vim does this by default,
   see :help netrw.
9. advanced keybinding : see :help :map and :help keycodes
10. mastering the kill ring : I guess you can simulate this with
    :echo @a, etc.
11. mastering Info : Not sure if this would be useful in Vim.
12. using M-x customize : Not sure what this does.
13. utility apps : It’s all in the plugins.

Summary: Porting good ideas is a good idea :)

I wonder why a search for Steve Yegge on Wikipedia points to
Batman…

Update in November end, 2008: I have released a new book on Vim, read the whole thing right here..