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Thanks for the feedback. vscode has regex find replace, but I don’t use it very often. It does show every match highlighted in the current file while entering

Thanks for the feedback. vscode has regex find replace, but I don’t use it very often. It does show every match highlighted in the current file while entering the find value, which is nice. It does the same for multi files if needed and gives a nice preview of every change. Word navigation I use a great deal (especially with multi-cursor editing). Ctrl+left/right jumps words, home, end to begin end of line. Ctrl+f Z Enter would go to next Z value. (Which I don’t use, because I don’t think in partial words much, but rather jump to mouse if I need to navigate far) That’s probably where I could gain in using that instead of going to the mouse every time.

throwaway8941 6y ago
Ctrl+arrow is almost as bad as going to the mouse. The thing with vim is you rarely have to leave the home row. Some other random things I use constantly (I am not the person you're replying to): C — replace to the end of the line xp — swap two characters (which I have to use more frequently than I'm willing to admit.) ci( — replace everything in brackets (like the arguments of a function, this also works with " or ' for strings, { for blocks of code, and so on). The cursor doesn't have to be inside the brackets, it'll jump to the nearest match. :earlier 10m — time traveling, which comes in handy between commits or with config files, especially if you configure vim to write persistent change history. What did this file look like a month ago? Oh yeah, :earlier 30d . — repeat the previous command (this is much bigger than it sounds, as it allows you to repeat the same complex manipulation on different data in situations where you can't use multi-cursor, but which don't warrant building a whole macro.) A ton of custom filetype- and mode-dependent <leader>-based bindings (which is the spacebar in my case). space-space to jump to definition, space-f to reformat the file, that sort of stuff. This can probably be done in vscode. If you're really interested, there are tons of vim videos on youtube made by real vim pros. I am very far from being one. The best for me are live coding sessions where vim usage is demonstrated by doing the real work, not on some toy examples.
- RMPR 6y ago
  > :earlier 10m — time traveling, which comes in handy between commits or with config files, especially if you configure vim to write persistent change history. What did this file look like a month ago? Oh yeah, :earlier 30d Another trick to my bag, that's why I absolutely love these threads about Vim.
  - lordgrenville 6y ago
    :later also works (hence the joke that you can just hit :later 8h and go home...)
- jcampbell1 6y ago
  On a Mac at least, ctrl+n/p/b/f/a/e all navigate text without reaching for the arrows, with the added benefit they work in every application. I quit vim because I prefer using a smaller but universal set of navigation that works everywhere from Xcode to VS code to the terminal or typing in Chrome.
akho 6y ago
Ctrl-arrows is not the same thing as vim’s wordwise movement. If you need to go 5 words forward, it’s 5w ; if you want to capitalize the next 3 words, gU3w ; the point is composability, not a single operation. Same goes for f.
- ketzu 6y ago
  I guess I, and maybe other non-vim users, just don't see much use in the composability. From many examples I've seen in this thread, the only one I found truly interesting was the branching undo feature. For most features, the advantage seems very small, as the use-case is so rare, or it's not the limiting factor anyways. But this is very limited to my experience. I am pretty sure, if I already knew those things, I would value that investment the same way the vim users do in the vim threads. But for now, it seems to me, that the investment is not worth the payoff and I am better off learning something else.
  - stnmtn 6y ago
    I use the vim plugin inside of VSCode and it's perfect for me. I would never go back to just VIM, or just an IDE. but my best use case for vim modes is stuff like: [c]hange [i]nside ["], where wherever your cursor inside inside of a "string", you can just press ci" and can immediately start typing a new string to fill it. And then this same thing can be changed to ci{ to change everything in {} to change a function, or ci( to change a function's paramaters, etc. Then theres stuff like [c]hange un[t]ill [x], to change everything up to a certain character. or [y]ank [i]nside ["], to 'yank' (copy) the text inside of a string and be able to paste it immediately anywhere I want to. It's verbs and sentences that you're writing in VIM modes. Do modern editors have these kinds of keyboard shortcuts? In general I think vim users are extremely bad at explaining why vim modes are so good, as I never use 5w. Am I really going to count how many words ahead I have to go? No, i'll just press [f]ind char to the word I have to go to. The biggest thing about vim is that it doesn't make you more efficient or faster, it just eliminates the time you have to think about how to edit text once you internalize it, which I know doesn't sound likely because the keybindings are so strange. But know that I've learned it, i genuinely don't think about it, and every time I'm not in VIM and have to move my mouse and click on a character I feel like I lose my train of thought of where I was in the code

throwaway8941 6y ago

Ctrl+arrow is almost as bad as going to the mouse. The thing with vim is you rarely have to leave the home row. Some other random things I use constantly (I am not the person you're replying to): C — replace to the end of the line xp — swap two characters (which I have to use more frequently than I'm willing to admit.) ci( — replace everything in brackets (like the arguments of a function, this also works with " or ' for strings, { for blocks of code, and so on). The cursor doesn't have to be inside the brackets, it'll jump to the nearest match. :earlier 10m — time traveling, which comes in handy between commits or with config files, especially if you configure vim to write persistent change history. What did this file look like a month ago? Oh yeah, :earlier 30d . — repeat the previous command (this is much bigger than it sounds, as it allows you to repeat the same complex manipulation on different data in situations where you can't use multi-cursor, but which don't warrant building a whole macro.) A ton of custom filetype- and mode-dependent <leader>-based bindings (which is the spacebar in my case). space-space to jump to definition, space-f to reformat the file, that sort of stuff. This can probably be done in vscode. If you're really interested, there are tons of vim videos on youtube made by real vim pros. I am very far from being one. The best for me are live coding sessions where vim usage is demonstrated by doing the real work, not on some toy examples.

RMPR 6y ago
> :earlier 10m — time traveling, which comes in handy between commits or with config files, especially if you configure vim to write persistent change history. What did this file look like a month ago? Oh yeah, :earlier 30d Another trick to my bag, that's why I absolutely love these threads about Vim.
- lordgrenville 6y ago
  :later also works (hence the joke that you can just hit :later 8h and go home...)
jcampbell1 6y ago
On a Mac at least, ctrl+n/p/b/f/a/e all navigate text without reaching for the arrows, with the added benefit they work in every application. I quit vim because I prefer using a smaller but universal set of navigation that works everywhere from Xcode to VS code to the terminal or typing in Chrome.

akho 6y ago

Ctrl-arrows is not the same thing as vim’s wordwise movement. If you need to go 5 words forward, it’s 5w ; if you want to capitalize the next 3 words, gU3w ; the point is composability, not a single operation. Same goes for f.

ketzu 6y ago
I guess I, and maybe other non-vim users, just don't see much use in the composability. From many examples I've seen in this thread, the only one I found truly interesting was the branching undo feature. For most features, the advantage seems very small, as the use-case is so rare, or it's not the limiting factor anyways. But this is very limited to my experience. I am pretty sure, if I already knew those things, I would value that investment the same way the vim users do in the vim threads. But for now, it seems to me, that the investment is not worth the payoff and I am better off learning something else.
- stnmtn 6y ago
  I use the vim plugin inside of VSCode and it's perfect for me. I would never go back to just VIM, or just an IDE. but my best use case for vim modes is stuff like: [c]hange [i]nside ["], where wherever your cursor inside inside of a "string", you can just press ci" and can immediately start typing a new string to fill it. And then this same thing can be changed to ci{ to change everything in {} to change a function, or ci( to change a function's paramaters, etc. Then theres stuff like [c]hange un[t]ill [x], to change everything up to a certain character. or [y]ank [i]nside ["], to 'yank' (copy) the text inside of a string and be able to paste it immediately anywhere I want to. It's verbs and sentences that you're writing in VIM modes. Do modern editors have these kinds of keyboard shortcuts? In general I think vim users are extremely bad at explaining why vim modes are so good, as I never use 5w. Am I really going to count how many words ahead I have to go? No, i'll just press [f]ind char to the word I have to go to. The biggest thing about vim is that it doesn't make you more efficient or faster, it just eliminates the time you have to think about how to edit text once you internalize it, which I know doesn't sound likely because the keybindings are so strange. But know that I've learned it, i genuinely don't think about it, and every time I'm not in VIM and have to move my mouse and click on a character I feel like I lose my train of thought of where I was in the code