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Steve Martinelli for IBM Developer

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Byte-Sized Tech Tips Round-Up: Week 7 (The Vim Edition πŸ’»)

This week's round up has a special theme, it's all about Vim! At our weekly meeting someone had mentioned using Vim, which of course turned into a conversation about all the tips and tricks for using it. Let's start!

Tip 1: Nigel's tip

From Nigel

One of my favorite modifiers in Vim is being able to modify certain commands with numbers. When I want to delete a line, I use dd, but if I needed to delete three lines, I use d3d. This works with several commands and I encourage you to check it out.

Tip 2: Make learning Vim fun!

From

If you’re looking to learn Vim, or have dabbled a bit and want to become a Vim Jedi, I’ve put together some fantastic resources to get you started! Vim Adventures is a comprehensive Vim online game to teach you all things Vim. Vim Genius will help you flex your Vim muscle memory and build up your skills and speed. If you prefer to work through technical documentation, Learn Vimscript the Hard Way is a great resource for manually working through all things Vim. Oh, and I did I mention they’re all FREE?!? Gotta love online resources

Tip 3: Double Z and NERDTree

From

I'm cheating a bit and including two tips. We've all seen a joke about being unable to quit Vim, i.e.:

The good news is that there's an easy way! (No, really!)

  1. Slam the ESC key a bunch of times.
  2. Press Shift + Z twice (Double Z)
  3. You've exited Vim!

The second tip is that if you really want to impress folks with your Vim skills install the NERDTree plug-in.

Photo credit to the folks at NERDTree

NERDTree will add a file system explorer for the Vim editor, allowing you to switch between editing multiple files without ever having to leave Vim.

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