Vim

2026-01-05

Inserting/appending the same string in a bunch of lines:

I find that I need to append multiple > when I am using callout boxes in markdown, when I paste text inside a callout box and the text has blank lines in it. This causes part of the pasted text to ‘jump out’ of the callout box and I have to manually add the > (single or multiple) to put the pasted text back in the callout box.

Vim definitely makes it easy with normal i command:

Prefix a bunch of lines with >> (Visual-line + :normal I)

1. Put cursor on the first line you want to indent
2. Enter Visual line mode: V
3. Select down to the last line you want inside the callout (use j, } for paragraph hops, or search for a boundary and jump).
4. Run: :'<,'>normal I>>

That inserts >> at the start of every selected line.

2025-12-23

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Find and replace all the instances of a string in multiple lines

(Source - Stack exchange)

Replace All:

:%s/foo/bar/g

Find each occurrence of ‘foo’ (in all lines), and replace it with ‘bar’.

For specific lines:

:6,10s/foo/bar/g

Change each ‘foo’ to ‘bar’ for all lines from line 6 to line 10 inclusive.

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2025-02-03

neovim intro doc:

Clipping of neovim intro doc from neovim website. Goes over the very basic definitions, notations etc.

2024-09-03

• https://www.vimgolf.com/
• Vim Cheat sheet: https://www.barbarianmeetscoding.com/boost-your-coding-fu-with-vscode-and-vim/cheatsheet

Basics

movement in a line

Basic Movement

1. 0 - Jump to the start of the line.
2. ^ - Move to the first non-blank character in the line.
3. $ - Move to the end of the line.
4. g_ - Move to the last non-blank character in the line.

Word Movements

5. w - Jump forward to the beginning of the next word.
6. e - Jump forward to the end of the current/next word.
7. b - Jump backward to the beginning of the previous word.
8. ge - Jump backward to the end of the previous word.

Inner Word Movements (CamelCase/underscores)

9. W / B - Move by “big words” (words separated by spaces).
10. iw - Select the word under the cursor.
11. ciw - Change the word under the cursor.
12. diw - Delete the word under the cursor.

Character Movements

13. f<char> - Jump forward to a specific character in the line.
14. t<char> - Jump forward to just before a specific character.
15. F<char> - Jump backward to a specific character.
16. T<char> - Jump backward to just after a specific character.
17. ; and , - Repeat the last f, t, F, or T search forward or backward, respectively.

Quick Jumps and Editing

18. 0f<char> - Combine 0 with f<char> to jump to the first occurrence of a character in a line.
19. A - Jump to the end of the line in insert mode.
20. I - Jump to the first non-blank character and enter insert mode.

Undo and Redo

21. u - Undo the last change.
22. Ctrl + r - Redo the last undone change.

Miscellaneous Tips

23. g; and g, - Move between recent change positions in the file (useful for navigating recent edits).
24. * and # - Jump to the next or previous occurrence of the word under the cursor within the file.