Effective text editing with vim

Effective Text Editing With Vim by Kentwang

11年3月7日星期一

Effective text editing

“Seven habits of effective text editing”

- Bram Moolenaar


Problem

Got lots of text to edit

- source code

- config file

- log

- etc.


Problem

Got lots of text to edit

- source code

- config file

- log

- etc.But don’t h

ave enough tim

e!


Tool

• Selecting a good editor is the first step towards effective text editing

• Obviously, Vim is used here


What is vim


Comments


Lots of people said like this


难用


其实心里往往这么想...


真TMD难用


But, some in other way


爽11年3月7日星期一

爽爽11年3月7日星期一

Why


Different view


Vim is a tool, the use of which must be learned


How to improve


Basic steps

1. Detect inefficiency

2. Find a quicker way

3. Make it a habit


Habit 1:Moving around quickly


Feature


Feature

VS


Feature

Who moved my mouse !

VS


Detect ineffeciency

• Depend on mouse

• Use direction keys

• One line/column each time

• Hard to find match things


Find a quicker way

• Edit without mouse

• Use ‘h j k l’ instead of direction keys

• Move multi-line each time

• Use ‘%’ to find match things


Find a quicker way

• Edit without mouse

• Use ‘h j k l’ instead of direction keys

• Move multi-line each time

• Use ‘%’ to find match things

Samples: 20G jump to line 20 ^ jump to first non blank of line $ jump to end of line % jump to match ( #if #endif etc.) 10j jump to 10 lines below 5w jump to 5 words after


Detect ineffeciency

• Typical you search like this


Detect ineffeciency


/FuncName


Detect ineffeciency


/FuncNamennnn...


Find a quicker way

• The hlsearch option

• The * command

• Folding with ‘zf ’ , ‘zo’ and ‘zc’


Make it a habit

• Put this in your vimrc file

• Use * again and again

• Use command completion (using <tab>)

• Use fold when needed

set hlsearch


Habit 2:Don’t type it twice


Detect ineffeciency

• Long class names

- TiXmlAttributeSet

• Long function names

- QueryDoubleAttribute

• Hard to type and often type it wrong

• Lots of time on indenting and code style


Find a quicker way

• Insert mode completion

• Ctrl - N & Ctrl -P

• Omni-completion

• Automatic indenting


Find a quicker way


Make it a habit

• Use Ctrl + P and Ctrl + N again and again

• Use omni-completion if needed

• Add these lines in vimrc:

filetype plugin on filetype indent on “ auto indent set ai set smarttab


Habit 3:Fix it when it’s wrong


Detect ineffeciency

• Often misspell English words

• Have to check text carefully

• Need a sequence of actions to correct tem

• After correct you misspell again and again


Find a quicker way

• Spell correction macros

:iabbrev accnt account

:syntax keyword WordError accnt


Make it a habit• Add new words if you see them


Habit 4:A file seldom comes

alone


Detect ineffeciency

• When working on a new project you have a hard time finding your way in the files

• You have to jump between files all the time

• Edit in an editor but compile in terminal

• Hard to find declaration of symbol


A quicker way

• Find & grep

• ctags & taglist

• Quickfix


Many other ways

• use ‘gf ’ to goto header file

• Use ‘[I’ to find the word under the cursor in include files. Or ‘[<Tab>’ to jump there

• Use a.vim to switch between .c and .h


Make it a habit

• Use quickfix as often as possible

• Drop ‘a.vim’ to your plugin directory

• Remember to use ‘ctags’ and ‘taglist’


Habit 5:Let’s work together


Detect ineffeciency

• Often need to compare files

• Switch out of terminal and use windows compare tools

• Sometimes have to transfer file from IDC server to local first, just because can’t use windows compare tools there and diff command is not so readable


A quicker way

• vimdiff or vim -d

• Works well in both terminal and GUI

• Pretty result and convenient interactive

• Use ‘[c’ ‘]c’ to jump to changes, ‘do’ ‘dg’ to copy text from one to another


A quicker way


More Effective

• Integrate with SVN

• SVN_EDITOR environment variable

• Set vim as diff program for svn diff


Make it a habit

• Use vimdiff instead of windows compare tools

• Add this line to your bashrc:

• Edit ~/.subversion/config, set vim as the diff-cmd

• If you are a big fan, try Vimperator / Vimium

export SVN_EDITOR=vim


Habit 6:Sharpen the saw


Sharpen the saw

• Keep on tuning the set of commands you use for your needs

• Learn from what you did

• Type :help command when you need help


Sharpen the saw

• Replacing

• automatic indenting

• quickfix

• plugins

• key-mapping


Replacing

• Replace a word

• Use \< and \> to match the start/end of word

Samples: 10, 20s/Old/New/g %s/Old/New/g %s/\<Old/New/g %s/\<Old\>/New/g


Replacing

• Replacing in several files

• Record / Execute register

Sample: vim *.cpp // start vim qq // start recording into the q register :%s/\<OldFunc\>/NewFunc/ge // replacing :wnext // write and goto next file q // stop recording @q // execute


Encoding

• fileencoding

• encoding

• LC_CTYPE


Summary• Step 1: Detect inefficiency

- Find out what you waste time on

• Step 2: Find a quicker way

- read the online help & quick reference

- ask friends & google

- do it yourself

• Step 3: Make it a habit

- do it

- keep on improving11年3月7日星期一

How to effectively

• No time to read documents or new commands. keep on using primitive commands.

• Want to learn every feature and use the most efficient command all the time.

NOT


Learn it, time rewarded.


One more thing


:help user-manual


Questions?


The End


Effective text editing with vim

Technology

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