How to use vim in the terminal

Question

How does one setup and start using vim in the terminal on OS X   I want to start writing my C code using vim in the terminal rather than a separate text editor  How does one get started on this   The basics like  opening  creating  saving files via terminal using vim and writing code using vim  Also  does one compile directly using vim in the terminal

User · Answer

You can definetely build your code from Vim  that s what the  make command does   However  you need to go through the basics first   type vimtutor in your terminal and follow the instructions to the end    After you have completed it a few times  open an existing  non-important  text file and try out all the things you learned from vimtutor  entering leaving insert mode  undoing changes  quitting saving  yanking putting  moving and so on   For a while you won t be productive at all with Vim and will probably be tempted to go back to your previous IDE editor  Do that  but keep up with Vim a little bit every day  You ll probably be stopped by very weird and unexpected things but it will happen less and less   In a few months you ll find yourself hitting o  v and i all the time in every textfield everywhere   Have fun

User · Answer

Get started quickly  You simply type vim into the terminal to open it and start a new file   You can pass a filename as an option and it will open that file  e g  vim main c  You can open multiple files by passing multiple file arguments   Vim has different modes  unlike most editors you have probably used  You begin in NORMAL mode  which is where you will spend most of your time once you become familiar with vim   To return to NORMAL mode after changing to a different mode  press Esc  It s a good idea to map your Caps Lock key to Esc  as it s closer and nobody really uses the Caps Lock key   The first mode to try is INSERT mode  which is entered with a   for append after cursor  or i for insert before cursor   To enter VISUAL mode  where you can select text  use v  There are many other variants of this mode  which you will discover as you learn more about vim   To save your file  ensure you re in NORMAL mode and then enter the command  w  When you press    you will see your command appear in the bottom status bar  To save and exit  use  x  To quit without saving  use  q  If you had made a change you wanted to discard  use  q    Configure vim to your liking  You can edit your    vimrc file to configure vim to your liking  It s best to look at a few first  here s mine  and then decide which options suits your style   This is how mine looks     To get the file explorer on the left  use NERDTree  For the status bar  use vim-airline  Finally  the color scheme is solarized   Further learning  You can use man vim for some help inside the terminal  Alternatively  run vimtutor which is a good hands-on starting point   It s a good idea to print out a Vim Cheatsheet and keep it in front of you while you re learning vim   Good luck

User · Answer

Run vim from the terminal  For the basics  you re advised to run the command vimtutor     On your terminal command line    vim   If you have a specific file to edit  pass it as an argument     vim yourfile cpp   Likewise  launch the tutorial    vimtutor

User · Answer

if you want to open all your  cpp files with one command  and have the window split in as many tiles as opened files  you can use   vim -o   find name   cpp     if you want to include a template in the place you are  you can use    r   myHeaderTemplate    will import the file  myHeaderTemplate in the place the cursor was before starting the command   you can conversely select visually some code and save it to a file    select visually   add w   myPartialfile txt    when you select visualy  after type     in order to enter a command  you ll see    lt      appear after the         lt    gt w   myfile       if you add    myfile  to the command  the selected part of the file will be saved to myfile    if you re editing a file an want to copy it      saveas newFileWithNewName

[macos] How to use vim in the terminal?

Examples related to macos

Examples related to vim

Examples related to terminal