Mastodawn

allywilson Oct 17, 2025

The number of vi/vim commands is relative to your age

The number of vi/vim commands is relative to your age - Lemmy

I’ve noticed that people older than me have always known just a few more vi commands than I do. I’m in my 40s, so clearly I know about 4: Writes and quits (I consider these variants of the same thing): :w :q :q! :wq ZZ See the line numbers: :set number Delete everything from top to bottom (must be at top, easily remembered by mumbling duck, duck, duck, GOOSE): :dddG Search for a string: / And that’s probably it. I think I used to know how to cut a line and paste a line, but I’d have to look it up to be 100% correct on the syntax. Anyone in their 50s or 60s care to add to this dazzlingly long list of inadequacy? Not looking for a cheat sheet or the man page :-p

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owsei

:%s for changing a string on the entire file (I think it also works with selections instead of entire file)

:m+{num} to move a line

:tabe to open another tab (not split)

:te open terminal

:wqa write and quit all buffers (will fail with non-writrable buffer, like a terminal, sadly)

:!{shell command} execute

:r!{shell command} execute and write to current buffer

:cd change directory

Not a command, but useful to remember % means current file (eg. :!rm %)

I’m 19, and the plan is to learn all before 200