Vim (text editor)
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Vim, which stands for Vi IMproved, is an open-source, multiplatform text editor.
Vim was first released by Bram Moolenaar in 1991. Since then Vim has added a myriad of features, many of which are helpful in editing program source code. Vim is today one of the two most popular editors for programmers and users of Unix-like operating systems, alongside Emacs.
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Modal editing
As a descendant of vi, Vim is modal - an unusual feature which tends to confuse new users. All editors are modal in the general sense of having to distinguish insert and command inputs, but most others implement that modality through very different methods: command menus (mouse or keyboard driven), meta keys (simultaneous use of multiple keys, usually involving control (CTRL) or ALT), and/or general mouse usage. Vim, following vi, is unique in that you switch the entire keyboard into and out of these modes. By default this is done with the escape (ESC) key. This allows you, but does not require you, to perform all editing functions with no use of the mouse or menus and minimal use of meta keys. For touch-typists and those averse to the mouse, this can be a great benefit in power and efficiency.
Vim has six basic modes and five variants of the basic modes:
Normal
- In normal mode you can enter all the editor commands such as cursor movement text deletion, etc. Vim starts in this mode by default. This is contrary to what many new users expect.
- Vim's power derives primarily from its extensive normal mode commands, many of them requiring an operator to complete. For example, the normal mode command "dd" deletes the line the cursor is currently on, but "d" can be followed by a motion command instead of another "d" such as the line down key ("j") to delete the current and the next line. You can also provide a count; "2dd" does the same thing as "dj". Once the user learns various movement/jump commands and other normal mode editing commands and how they can be combined their editing often becomes much more efficient than users of "modeless" editors.
Operator-pending
- In this sub-mode of normal mode an operator command has been started and Vim is waiting for a "motion" to complete it. Vim also supports special "text objects" in place of motions in operator-pending mode, which can include "aw" for a word, "as" for a sentence, "ap" for a paragraph, etc.
Insert Normal
- This mode is entered when control-o is pressed in insert mode. It behaves like normal mode but only lets you execute one command before Vim returns to insert mode.
Visual
- This behaves much like normal mode, but the movement commands extend highlighted text. When a non-movement command is used it is performed on the highlighted area. Vim's "text objects" can be used in this mode as motion commands as well.
Insert Visual
- This is entered from insert normal mode by pressing control-o then starting a visual selection. After the visual selection ends Vim returns to insert mode.
Select
- This is somewhat like MS-Windows selection mode — you can highlight text with the mouse and the cursor keys, but typing a character causes the highlighted area to be deleted and Vim enters insert mode with the character you typed inserted.
Insert Select
- This mode is usually entered by dragging the mouse or using a shifted arrow key in insert mode. After the selection ends Vim returns to insert mode.
Insert
- In this mode most keys on the keyboard insert text into the buffer. This behavior is what most new users expect text editors to always do.
Replace
- This is a special insert mode where you can do the same things as you would do in insert mode, but each character you type overwrites an existing character in the buffer.
Command-line
- In command-line mode you can enter one line which is interpreted as a command (":" key), search ("/" and "?" keys), or a filter command ("!" key).
Ex mode
- This is like command-line mode, but you can enter multiple commands until you leave this mode by typing "visual".
Evim
Vim has a special GUI mode that tries to behave more like a "modeless" editor called evim where the editor starts and stays in insert mode and the user has to use the menus, mouse, and keyboard control keys, such as the arrow keys. This mode can be enabled by typing "evim" on the command line (Unix) or clicking on the evim icon (Windows).
Learning to use Vim
Vim is said to have a steep learning curve, meaning learning is slow initially but once the user gets a grasp of the basics they progress quickly and their editing becomes more efficient. To facilitate this there's the vim tutorial for beginners, usually invoked by typing "vimtutor" on the Unix command line or clicking on the Vim tutor icon on the Windows desktop. There's also the Vim Users' Manual that goes into depth about the basic and more advanced features of Vim which can be read by typing ":help usr_toc" within Vim.
New users should also learn how to navigate and understand the conventions of the Vim help system by reading the main help file by typing ":help" without any arguments.
Features and improvements over Vi
Some of the main features of Vim and improvements of Vim over vi:
- Vim is almost fully vi compatible (in compatible mode)
- portability: there are versions for
- unlimited multi level undo/redo
- multiple modified buffers
- Graphical User Interface (GUI) mode
- split windows — both horizontal and vertical
- syntax highlighting for hundreds of file types
- support for Unicode
- trans-session history of commands/searches/registers/positions ...
- command-line editing and extensive completion
- IDE-like build/review/edit features
- session state preservation, including cursor position and history
- configurable status line
- insert-mode completion
- multi-mode text folding
- extended scripting and expressions
- scripted plugins
- remote file editing from ssh, ftp and http servers, among others
- visual mode selection with character/line/block ranges
- comprehensive integrated help system with hypertext via ctags
- code folding
- mouse sensitive
History
| Date: | Version: | Milestone: |
|
| ||
| 1988 | 1.0 | Based on Stevie for the Amiga, named Vi IMitation, never publicly released. |
| November 2, 1991 | 1.14 | First public release for the Amiga on Fred Fish disk #591. |
| 1992 | 1.22 | Port to Unix. Vim now competes with Vi. This was when Vim became Vi IMproved. |
| August 12, 1994 | 3.0 | Support for multiple windows. |
| May 29, 1996 | 4.0 | Graphical User Interface. |
| February 19, 1998 | 5.0 | Syntax highlighting, basic scripting (user defined functions, commands, etc.). |
| September 26, 2001 | 6.0 | Folding, plugins, multi-language, etc. |
| March 24, 2002 | 6.1 | Bug fixes |
| June 1, 2003 | 6.2 | GTK2, Arabic language support, :try command, minor features, bug fixes |
| June 7, 2004 | 6.3 | Bug fixes, translation updates, mark improvements |
| October 15, 2005 | 6.4 | Bug fixes, updates to Perl, Python, and Ruby support |
| In Development | 7.0 | Spell checking, code completion, document tabs, current line/column highlighting, undo branches, and more. |
(Note that development releases and most minor version releases after 3.0 aren't included in this list, yet.)
References
- Vim help system (type ":help" within vim)
- Moolenaar, Bram (2002) "Vim, an open-source text editor" (history), Retrieved Oct. 24, 2005
- Template:Bookinfo
See also
- List of text editors
- Comparison of text editors
- Vim syntax highlighting for Wikipedia's wikitext
- Editor war
- Cream — Configuration of the Vim text editor for Windows and GNU/Linux
- List of Unix programs
External links
- Vim home page
- Manual
- ICCF Holland — The charity that Vim supports.
- Vim on VMS
- Discussion forums:
- Vi-IMproved.org — A Wiki dedicated to Vim (#Vim on freenode)
- comp.editors — Vim (dominated) newsgroup
- Quick references:
- HOWTOs and FAQs:
- Irish Linux Users' Group vi(m) tutorials:
- Intro to vi — Basics
- vi(m) Tutorial 2 — Search and replace, abbreviations and autocorrect, filters
- vi(m) Tutorial 3 — Syntax highlighting, mappings and the vimrc file
- vi(m) Tutorial 4 — Variable/Word completion, indenting, macros and function navigation
- Western Orthodox Editors Page — Softpanorama page about viTemplate:Link FA
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