Did you know/2008

This is an archive of the Did you know section on the Main Page for 2008 (started in February 2008).

December 2008

• A Byte of Vim is a free ebook on Vim
• Vim 7.2 has been released
• Visually-selected characters can be replaced to underline with dashes.
• The sleep command with a recursive mapping allows automatic scrolling of text.
• The command :set isfname+=32 allows gf to open file names with spaces.
• Ctrl-[ and Alt-Space are suggested as alternatives to hitting Esc.
• You can use syntax folding with Vim scripts.
• A simple script allows folding in .ini files.
• The command :%s//new/g performs a substitute using the last search.
• Use :bufdo %s/old/new/ge to substitute in all buffers.
• A substitute can swap the LHS and RHS of an assignment statement.
• The xxd tool allows hex editing and improved hex editing.

November 2008

• Vim 7.2 has been released
• The command :0r foo.txt will insert a file before the first line.
• The useful mark commands include `0 to jump to the position when Vim was last exited.
• A simple script can number a group of lines.
• More scripting can wrap text in HTML tags.
• A plugin allows easy switching between source and header files.
• It's handy to search and replace the word under the cursor.
• Using :args *.c and :sall will load multiple files.
• Quickly change words or lines with commands like ciw c$ cis.
• Get an overview of your program using folds.
• If needed, it's easy to reload your file in a different encoding.

October 2008

• Vim 7.2 has been released
• Mappings with expand("%:p:h") help working with files in the same directory.
• When searching, \n is newline, \r is CR, but when replacing, \r is newline, \n is a null byte.
• You can set, clear, invert, display, and restore a boolean option to its default.
• Press . to repeat the last change.
• With the right commands, you can swap characters, words and lines.
• There are many settings for working with Unicode, and handling BOM markers.
• A modeline can configure options for a particular file.
• A mapping can jump to where a Perl function is defined (without tags).
• You can fold sequences of two or more blank lines.
• You can list lines containing a keyword and prompt to jump to a line.

September 2008

• During an incremental search, you can press Ctrl-L to insert the next character from the match.
• A syntax command can highlight doubled word errors (if you repeat repeat a word).
• Setting foldexpr allows you to fold everything except for matches to your search.
• Ctrl-A and Ctrl-X will increment and decrement numbers.
• gf and friends can open the file under the cursor, optionally in a new window.
• Some keys can delete text, and you can't undo, but you can recover and avoid the problem.
• Ctrl-R can insert a register or word in insert mode and the command line.
• You can format text with built-in commands, or an external program.
• Some mappings make it easy to copy the name of the current file to the clipboard.
• You can remove one mark or all marks.

August 2008

• A modeline can't set the file encoding, but UTF-8 Vim can read Latin1 as Latin1.
• Using :set diffopt+=iwhite will ignore white space in vimdiff.
• Using set t_Co=256 will enable 256 colors under xterm.
• Under Mac OS X, using a script can open files from the command line in the same window.
• Using :set laststatus=2 will always show the status line.
• You can save typing by using abbreviations.
• The vis.vim plugin is useful for applying :substitute to a blockwise visual selection.
• Learning the standard movement keys saves time when moving around.
• It's worth learning how to work with Vim buffers.
• Move ahead of the masses by using Ctrl-o and Ctrl-i.

July 2008

• Press gd or gD to jump to the declaration of a local or global variable.
• Press Ctrl-o or Ctrl-i to jump to previously visited locations (older/newer).
• In gvim, 'guioptions' can hide the toolbar and menu.
• Programmers should learn to browse with tags.
• Use 'formatoptions' to control text formatting including the automatic insertion of comments.
• The command :g/^\s*$/d will remove all blank lines.
• The command :g//d will delete all lines containing the last search pattern.
• There are several methods to change the indentation of a block of lines.
• A mapping can change the Home key to move to the first character, or the first that is nonblank.
• Filtering and redirection can capture output from Vim or external programs.

June 2008

• HTML sections in PHP can be auto-indented.
• It's easy to change between backslash and forward slash in a file path.
• If you create your own tags file, you can jump to the correct line and column.
• If you work with many files, it's easy to save them all with :wa or :xa.
• Substituting with an expression allows a file to be sorted based on the number of words in each line.
• Simple substitutes or a Perl script can convert text using HTML entities like >.
• The command :g/^/exe ".w ".line(".").".txt" saves each line in the buffer to a separate file.
• :g// lists all lines containing the last search pattern, and :redir will capture the results.
• Some menu commands make beautifying code easy.
• With set browsedir=buffer the File, Open dialog defaults to the current file's directory.

May 2008

• A user-defined command can evaluate :Calc sin(pi/2).
• It's sometimes better to not use the slash delimiter for :s/old/new/.
• You can drag & drop one or more files into gvim.
• Use register @/ to execute commands without changing the search register.
• You can map a key to <Nop> to disable an unwanted key.
• When substituting, the replacement can be the result of an expression.
• With a good regex, you can change all HTML tags to lowercase.
• input() can read an HTML tag to wrap around a visual selection.
• Use vat to select a tag block, then da> to delete the tags.
• Vim can display a lot more than ASCII characters!

April 2008

• The shortmess and cmdheight options allow you to avoid "Hit Enter to continue" prompts.
• An option controls how backspace and other delete keys work in insert mode.
• You can display line numbers and change the width of the number column.
• It's easy to change text between lowercase and UPPERCASE.
• The command history allows you to repeat several commands, possibly after editing them.
• @: will repeat a colon (Ex) command (and @@ will repeat again).
• You can use :g/^\s*$/;//-1sort to sort each block of lines in a file.
• It's useful to map . .`[ to repeat the last command and put the cursor at start of change.
• You can open a web browser with the URL in the current line.
• With --remote-send you can close a Vim you left open remotely.
• If you're used to Perl regex, you can use Perl compatible regular expressions.
• In insert mode, Ctrl-Y inserts the character above. You can make it insert the word above.

March 2008

• There are many ways to search the help files.
• You can modify the value of almost everything with the 'let' command.
• The Best Vim Tips are in tip 305.
• The status line can show your fileencoding and bomb.
• There is more than one way to jump to line 42.
• A tricky search can find text that does not match.
• After typing a couple of characters, you can complete a word.
• In a program, you can jump to the beginning or end of a code block.
• With two related files in a vertical split, you can scroll both windows together.
• A map using expand("%:p") can copy the current file path to the clipboard.
• It's easy to count the words in a file or block.
• You can even make a frequency table counting the occurrences of each word!

February 2008

• You can press * to search for the current word.
• To insert the next matching word, press Ctrl-N.
• Use % to jump to the matching bracket, and more.
• Ctrl-A can increment numbers.
• You can wrap long lines while moving the cursor by screen lines.
• Use :lcd %:p:h to change directory to the file in the current window.
• ga shows the ascii value of the current character.
• zz scrolls the current line to the middle of the screen; scrolloff can keep it there.
• You can list changes to the current file, even old changes.
• Non-US keyboards have lots of useful keys for normal-mode mappings.
• Use za to toggle folds open/closed.
• Vim can do calculations using Python, Perl or bc.