On 21/07/09 15:40, Ben Fritz wrote:
[...]
> Vim has a very steep learning curve, and there's not much we can do to
> change that. Once you've mastered it, however, it will make you far
> more efficient, paying for your initial time investment many times
> over.
>
> It looks like you have general idea what you're doing, so I imagine
> you've already ran the tutorial. If not...do so. You can also learn a
> great deal just reading emails or archives on this list, by reading
> through chapters of the :help, or by following the "Random page" link
> on vim.wikia.com a few times a day. Stick with it. You'll be glad you
> did.
Rather than "steep", I would say that Vim has a very "high" learning
curve: I mean, Vim has a lot of functionality and customizability, which
means there are a lot of things that can (and ideally should) be learnt
about using it. And the more you learn, the more it becomes exciting and
the more you want to go on learning about it.
This learning curve is, however, made somewhat less "steep" by the fact
that Vim comes with very extra-super-hyper-first-class documentation.
Indeed, John, as Ben said, the first step is to run the tutorial. But
once you've done so, there are still other "ropes" to help you climb
that slope. The main one is the help system. In fact, that help system
is so complete (_everything_ is in it) that it often looks to the
beginner like a mountain-high haystack with a little golden needle
hidden somewhere in it. I know: when I was a beginner, finding the info
I needed from the help often looked like a Herculean task. But Vim has
tools, even for searching the help. Here are the main ones, or where to
read about them: First, read
:help
:help :help
:help {subject}
where you type {subject} like that: brace, s, u, b, etc. until the
closing brace.
Then if you're not sure of the tag name,
:help partname^D
(where ^D means "hit Ctrl-D") will show you all the help subjects that
include the "partname", which can include the same kind of wildcards as
a filename (? for one character and/or * for zero or more characters).
:set wildmenu
:help partname<Tab>
(or with Ctrl-E instead of Tab if you are running Vim in 'compatible'
mode, which is not recommended) will display the possible completions in
the form of a menu on the status line. Use <Left> or <Right> to select a
different item, <Enter> to accept, <Esc> to cancel. This is explained under
:help 'wildmenu'
:help 'wildmode'
:helpgrep pattern
will search the _whole text_ of all help files for the vim-regexp
/pattern/. The first match is displayed and all matches are collected
into a quickfix list, so you can navigate the matches by means of
:cnext
:cprev
:cnfile
:cpfile
:cfirst
:clast
and/or open the quickfix list by
:copen
after which, hitting Enter on one line of the list brings you to the
corresponding text in its helpfile. This "quickfix" stuff is described
in detail under ":help quickfix.txt". For easier navigation, I recommend
mapping at least the first two of these commands to single keys, as follows:
:nmap <F2> :cnext<CR>
:nmap <S-F2> :cprev<CR>
In addition to the help, there exists, as Ben said, a collection of
"tips and tricks" which have been written over time by the various users
of Vim. Those tips are collected in wikipedia form, starting at
http://vim.wikia.com/ . They vary in quality, but as with every
Wikimedia site, they become better over time by the "ruthless editing"
of the site's subscribers, who are Vim users like you and me; Ben
"Fritzophrenic" is indeed one of the most active of them.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but
is always polite to traffic cops.
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