'i' and 'a' (mnemonic: the 'a' grabs all of something (and its white space) as opposed to 'i' which grabs the inner part) as modifiers for 'c', 'd', 'y', and 'v

'i' and 'a' (mnemonic: the 'a' grabs all of something (and its white space) as opposed to 'i' which grabs the inner part) as modifiers for 'c', 'd', 'y', and 'v' can be very useful, but I don't see them talked about much in most tutorials. See :help motion.txt - they're in section 6. Text Object Selection. Also, just play around with them a little. For example: <p>This is a tes|t. Do not be alarmed.</p> If that's your text, and the cursor is at the pipe: ciw # remove all of 'test', enter insert mode caw # remove the word 'test' and preceding space, enter insert mode vit # visually select all the text within the <p> tags vat # visually select the whole <p> element