View source for Visual Editor (VI)

Visual Editor
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I love the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi vi] editor.  Many do not like it because of vi's large learning curve.  It is well worth the time and effort need to learn it.  vi is very powerful and will save a lot of time in the end.  It can do many things that standard editor can and can not do...like edit text documents with a terminal, regular expressions, macros, show hidden characters, show line numbers, pairing brackets/parenthesis, etc, etc.

Using a document containing several pages helps show vi's power.  Using the sentence "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quick_brown_fox_jumps_over_the_lazy_dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog]" to practice your typing with VI is fun because it has all the letters in one sentence.


Some of my favorite commands are below:

Jump to a specific line
* <number>G or <number>gg
Jump to a specific column
* <number>|
Jump to opening/closing parenthesis and brackets...(),{},[]...when cursor is sitting on one of them
* %
Jump to the beginning of line
* 0
Jump to the end of line
* $


'''Display''':

Move the cursor's line to the top of the editor
* z<enter>
Show line numbers
* :set number
Show hidden characters
* :set list


'''Delete/Copy/Paste/Edit''':

Delete word (what you delete/copy is automatically put in your buffer...if you want to paste somewhere else)
* dw
Yank/copy word
* yw
Delete entire line
* D or dd
Paste before
* P
Paste after
* p
Undo
* u
Redo
* <ctrl>r


'''Search''':

Forward search
* /<pattern>
Backward search
* ?<pattern>
Next match of search
* n
Previous match of search
* N
Case insensitive search
* \c<pattern>


'''Tips/Tricks''':
Use undo to jump back to where you were editing, then redo to get back to the same change
* u
* <ctrl>r
Repeat the same command
* .
If your terminal's suspend key is set correctly...go back to shell...do stuff...and return
* <ctrl>z
* fg
While in vi sort the contents
* :sort