innocenat

While I know how to use Vim to manipulate text file – a skill mostly required if you need to manage Unix/Linux server, I don’t know how to use vim efficiently.

Before, I know that <i> and <a> get me into insert mode, where arrow button works. <Esc> would take me back to command mode, where :w saves the file, :q quit the program and :q! quit without saving. Actually, I learnt to Vim because I didn’t know nano editor exist!

I quite like Vim, even though I don’t know how powerful can it be at times. It’s light; it’s fast; it gets work done. I admit, I haven’t tried emacs, but the idea of using that much <Ctrl> button already scared me.

Now that I use Linux, and even though I bring Sublime Text with me – an editor that is the best since Vim/emacs/Ed/etc. – I don’t feel the need to use it. I search for some example .vimrc on the Internet and randomly copy one into my home folder and play around. To my surprise, it’s actually better than I thought.

I will probably be using Vim as my main editor for time being (unless I need power of large IDE refactoring). I also installed Vimium extension on Chrome. Due to this notebook being quite old its touchpad isn’t that good, and after using Vimium and Vim for sometimes now I don’t want to use the mouse anymore!

My current working environment consist of three desktop workspaces: one for Chrome, one for XChat and one for terminal. In the terminal I use GNU Screen to divide my screen to Vim, terminal for compiling/running etc. This actually work quite well. I suggest you to try it.