-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 110
AdvancedTopicTutorial
- High speed tour from beginner to expert in 7 steps
- Core concept of Vim: Two important role in editing.
- Operator modifier
- Advanced concept
- persistent-selection
- preset-occurrence
- When occurrence is exists, target is re-selected before applying operator to target.
- Useful operator and target(Motion, TextObject) used with ocurrence.
- Motion
- TextObject
- Excersise.
To attract your attention, I'll first try to lift up your Vim level with only 7 steps!
- You know visual-mode
- Use TextObject
- Use better Operator
- Combine opertor with text-object
- Modify operator's behevior by
o
to make it operate on occurrence - Use preset-occurrence
- Use persistent-selection
This is 1st paragraph text.
2nd line also include text text text.
3rd line include text text text
This is 2nd paragraph text.
2nd line also include text text text.
3rd line include text text text
4th text
You want to replace 1st whole paragraph to abc
.
You select text of paragraph using visual-mode
.
-
v j j $
orV j j
-
d
to delete selected text -
i
to startinsert-mode
. - Type
abc
thenescape
.
DONE. well done.
You can do it better by using TextObject
You can select whole paragraph by i p
(inner-paragraph
).
v i p
-
d
to delete selected text -
i
to startinsert-mode
. - Type
abc
thenescape
.
DONE. much better.
You can do it better by using Operator
Instead of delete
text then start insert-mode
by i
, you can do it both at once by change
operator.
v i p
-
c
tochange
text. Whole paragraph wasdeleted
and you are now ininsert-mode
. - Type
abc
thenescape
.
DONE. much much better.
You can do it better by not using visual-mode
What't the benefit?
You don't have to type v
or V
to start visual-mode
, saved one keystroke.
You edit more declaratively than imperatively.
Instead of saying "select then mutate this selection", you can say "mutate this target".
The more you get familiar with this flow(operator
first then target
), the less you use visual-mode
.
One bonus, by telling operator
first, your operation become repeatable by .
.
By repeating you can apply same editing transaction to different place(different paragraph in this example).
-
c i p
tochange
inner-paragraph
. Operator first, then target(TextObject). - Type
abc
thenescape
.
DONE. Wow, the number of keystrokes reduced drastically!
And you can now apply same edit to next paragaph, move cursor to next paragraph then try .
to repeat!
New requirement.
Instead of changing whole paragraph to abc
, you want to replace text
appears in 1st pargraph to abc
Here o
operator-modifier comes in play!
- Move cursor to
text
in 1st paragraph. -
c o i p
, orc o p
. - Type
abc
thenescape
DONE. What happened?
The o
is operator-modifier, which modify operator's behavior.
The effect of o
is it re-select keyword under-cursor from target area(1st paragraph in this case) under the hood.
When you use operator with occurrence
, it easier to undersand by thinking in following way.
Instead of saying "Do operation on this target", you can say "Apply this operator to this target".
In this example case "Apply change operator to this paragraph" instead of saying "Change this paragraph"
When occurrence
is involved, the sentence become "Apply change operator to ocurrences in this paragraph"
And off course you can repeat same edit-unit on 2nd paragraph, confirm it by .
on 2nd paragraph.
New requirement.
You also want to change text
and line
keyword in 1st paragraph to abc
.
Now you have to replace two keyword.
You can do it by using preset-occurrence
.
Instead of typing o
in the middle of operation, you can pre-set occurrence by g o
.
- Move cursor to
text
in 1st paragraph. -
g o
topreset-occurrence
fortext
keywrod. - Move to 2nd line
line
keywrod theng o
. -
c i p
orc p
- Type
abc
thenescape
DONE. Since you pre-set occurrence keyword, your operator is applied to text
and line
keywrod.
The benefit is that you can choose operator after you decided occurrence keywrod.
New requirement.
You want replace line
and text
in 1st paragraph and 2nd paragraph.
But you want to exclude 2nd line of 2nd pargraph, so you can not use .
repeat power!!
In this case, persistent-selection
helps you.
- Create
preset-occurrence
fortext
andline
keyword byg o
. -
v i p
to select 1st pargraph thenenter
. Real selection becomepersistent-selection
- Move to first line of 2nd pargraph.
-
V enter
to make selection persist. - Move to 3rd line of 2nd paragaph(Yes! you skipped 2nd line of paragraph-2).
-
V j
to select 3rd and 4th line of paragraph-2 -
c
to changepreset-occurrence
keywrod within selection(which includespersistent-selection
). - Type
abc
.
DONE. Well DONE.
You're now super Vimmer!!
- The Operator is verb of operation.
- The TextObject is object of operation.
- Operation is sentence in text editing in Vim.
Do practice with different verb(Operator) and different object(Motion or TextObject)!!
Train your finger, muscle memory untill you can type without thinking, untill you can transform text with minimum keystroke!!.
To compliment your understanding, I strongly recommend you to read operator, the true power of Vim by kana.
To understand advanced topic like occurrence-modifier
, preset-occurrence
, persistent-selection
without difficulty.
You must understand very basic conept which consists the-editing-in-the-vim-world.
So please be patient to read following short conceptual explanation.
In Vim editing, there is two very important key roles which composes whole your editing. That two key roles are Operator and Target.
- Operator: Specify what to do. The verb. The verbe requiring object.
- Target: Specify where, which to do. target of operator. The object for verb.
So whole Vim editing is continuously telling vim to "Do what to which target".
- Do what is expressed by Operator
- Which target is expressed by Motion or TextObject
- Operator require target
- If operator could not get satisfied with target, it enter
operator-pending
mode to get target from user. In other words,operator-pending
mode istarget-waiting
mode. - Some operator is pre-targeted so it don't have to get target from user(won't enter
operator-pending
. e.gD
is pre-targeted with$
motion. soD
is short hand ofd $
. - Pre-targeted operator is good for less keystrokes but bad for flexibility, since it doesn't allow you to specify arbitrary target you want to mutate.
- Target is range of text determined by
Motion
orTextObject
. -
TextObject
defines target range(start
andend
position). -
Motion
is essentially used to move cursor, so it only define final-target-position(destination to move). - When
Motion
is used as target, current-cursor-position(here
) is used asstart
, you can think motion-as-target like text-object which range is from here-to-destination. -
visual-mode
is special, When you type operator invisual-mode
, it immediately mutatecurrent-selection
, In other words all operator used invisual-mode
is pre-targeted(preset-target) tocurrent-selection
.
To use operator-modifier, you insert keystroke between operator and target.
Following text illustrate where or when you have to type operator-modifier
.
# delete from-here-to-next-row in linewise
d j
^ here
# delete from here-to-next-word in characterwise
d w
^ here
# change inner-paragraph mutate whole paragraph
c i p
^ here
In vmp, currently three operator-modifiers are available.(ctrl-v
modifier is not yet supported.)
-
v
: Force target range tocharacterwise
range. -
V
: Force target range tolinewise
range. -
o
: Reselect occurrences of keyword within target range before applying operator.
# delete from-here-to-next-row in characterwise.(characterwise range, not whole two lines).
d v j
^ characterwise modifier is used.
# delete from here-to-next-word in linewise.(whole current line).
d V w
^ linewise V modifier is used, target range become linewise.
# change all occurrence of keyword under-cursor appears in parapgraph.
c o i p
^ o modifier pick cursor-word as occurrence, re-select it appearing in paragraph.
For o
modifier, OccurrenceModifier
Before starting explanation. Here is some fancy GIFs to motivate you to learn these new way of editing.
From v0.58.0.
- Allow user to set target BEFORE operator.
- Used as implicit target of operator. As like selection in
visual-mode
is used as implict target. - Config:
autoSelectPersistentSelectionOnOperate
(default=true
) control to disable implicit targeting. - Keymap: In
visual
,enter
tocreate-persistent-selection
. - If you map
c s
tochange-surround
, I recommend you to change it, also change other keymaps starting withc
. Otherwise, you have to wait timeout after typingc
where you can immediately mutate persistent-selection. - Following two operation do the same thing, but former target is normal selection, later target is
persistent-selection
.-
V j j c
: change two three line. -
V j j enter c
: change three line.
-
- Work on multiple target without using mouse: set multiple target by
persistent-selection
then mutate. - Narrow target range to include particular set of
occurrence
.
From v0.58.0.
- Allow user to set occurrence BEFORE operator.
- Keymap: In
normal
,visual
,g o
totoggle-preset-occurrence
.- It add/remove
preset-occurrence
at cursor position. - When removing, it remove one by one, not all.
- It add/remove
- Keymap: In incsearch input,
cmd-o
toadd-occurrence-pattern-from-search
- It add
preset-occurrence
by search-pattern.
- It add
- Following two operation do the same thing, but former is
operator-modifier
, later ispreset-occurrence
(g o
).-
c o $
: change cursor-word till end-of-line. -
g o c $
: change cursor-word till end-of-line.
-
- I recommend user also try to enable
stayOnTransformString
,stayOnDelete
feature, it fit well withoccurrence
editing.
- preset-occurrence: Used to specify occurrence preliminarily. Instead of using
o
in the middle of operator, user can presetoccurrence
. - persistent-selection: Used to specify target preliminarrily. As like in
visual-mode
, when you specify opearator, operator immediately apply mutation onpersistent-selection
range.
- occurrences is now new target, not original target range like paragpraph itself.
- Instead of mutate(by
delete
,change
) whole paragraph, it mutate occurrences only. - As long as start or end pointion of occurrence is intersecting with target-range, vmp treat it as "target".
- This inclusive tolerance allow user to apply selected set of occurrence using
visual-mode
orpersistent-selection
very roughly.
- Operator just works on target
- Don't care if it was occurrence-reselected-target or was-normal-target
- Just mutate target-range. That's it.
Although all operator, motion, text-object is used with occurrence
and preset-occurrence
.
Following table list frequently used operator and target used with occurrence
.
The more you familiar with these target, the more you can use occurrence
naturally, fluently.
So train your finger until you can type without thinking, untill you type from your muscle memory!!
Key | Command | Description |
---|---|---|
C |
change-to-last-character-of-line |
Change occurr from here to EOL |
D |
delete-line |
Delete occurr from here to EOL |
Key | Command | Description |
---|---|---|
$ |
move-to-last-character-of-line |
Same as D , But used with o modifier |
^ |
move-to-first-character-of-line |
Opposite of $ , here to HOL(Head of line) |
G |
move-to-last-line |
Here to bottom of buffer |
r |
replace |
Used with preset-occurrence and visual or persistent-selection
|
g g |
move-to-first-line |
From here to top of buffer. |
H |
move-to-top-of-screen |
From here to visible top. Top row of screen. |
L |
move-to-bottom-of-screen |
From here to visible bottom. Bottom row of screen. |
M |
move-to-middle-of-screen |
From here to visible middle. Middle row of screen. |
[ |
move-up-to-edge |
From here to upper edge |
] |
move-down-to-edge |
From here to down edge |
/ |
search |
From here to next search match. |
? |
search-backwards |
From here to previous search match. |
* |
search-current-word |
From here to next cursor-word match. |
# |
search-current-word-backwards |
From here to previous cursor-word match. |
} |
move-to-next-paragraph |
From here to next blank row. |
{ |
move-to-previous-paragraph |
From here to previous blank row. |
Key | Command | Description |
---|---|---|
i v |
inner-visible-area |
Visible screen are. Whole rows you can see in current screen view. |
a v |
a-visible-area |
Same as i v . No behavior diff. |
i e |
inner-entire |
Entire buffer. |
a e |
a-entire |
Same as a e . No behavior diff. |
i p |
inner-paragraph |
Consecutive non-blank rows. |
i i |
inner-indentation |
Consecuvive non-blank and equal or deeper indent level rows. |
a i |
a-indentation |
Consecutive equal or deeper indent level rows includes blank-row. |
i f |
inner-function |
Inner fucntion area, not include first row(where parameter comes) |
a f |
a-function |
Include whole function, better than i f to mutate occurrence
|
i l |
inner-current-line |
Current line text excluding leading and trailing spaces. |
i z |
inner-fold |
Inner fold, nearest enclosed fold are, not include first row. |
a z |
a-fold |
Same as i z but include first row. |
I'll explain basic usage of preset-occurrence
by useing follwing simple text.
This text have 3 instance of 'text' in the whole text
This text have 3 instance of 'text' in the whole text
- Place cursor on first "text" occurrence.
-
g o
to mark it aspreset-occurrence
. - Try with different operator with different target. by
undo
ing byu
on each try.
-
C
:change
, three 'text' occurrences on 1st line. -
d d
:delete
, three 'text' occurrences on 1st. -
D
: alsodelete
, three 'text' occurrences on 1st. -
c j
:change
, six 'text' occurrences on 1st line and 2nd line. -
d j
:delete
, six 'text' occurrences on 1st line and 2nd line. -
I j
then typegreat-
:insert
at start of six 'text' occurrences. six 'text' become 'great-text'. -
A j
then type-editor
:insert
at end of six 'text' occurrences. six 'text' become 'text-editor'.
- Move to
'text'
in the middle of 1st line. -
g o
to mark it aspreset-occurrence
. - Try with different operator with different target. by
undo
ing byu
on each try.
-
C
:change
, two 'text' occurrences appears from here to EOL on 1st line. -
c ^
:change
, two 'text' occurrences appears from here to HOL(head of line) on 1st line. -
v j d
:delete
, four 'text' occurrences with exception of first and last 'text' occurrence.
- Select
t
char invisual-mode
. -
g o
to set thatt
char as occurrence -
d j
delete allt
char from two lines.
- This feature, preset-occurrence-by-search-pattern is available only when you enabled
incrementalSearch
from setting view.
- Start incremental-search with
/
- Seach
\bt\w+
which is pattern for word starting witht
character. -
cmd-o
, setpreset-occurrence
to pattern-matched text. -
d j
delete everyt
starting word from two line.
- Place cursor on to that parameter name.
- Mark that parameter name with
g o
- Do whatever from following
-
c f
orc a f
to change same parameter name appears in current-function in-bluk. -
I f
orI a f
to insert start-of-each occurrence, which is useful when you want to prefix it. -
A f
orA a f
to insert start-of-each occurrence, which is useful when you want to suffix it.
When you want to cosolidate some messy code which always calling similar set of method in sequence, that mean you move some code into object's method.
Let's say you want to move logic that use mutation.getPoint(xxx)
, mutation.getMarker(xxx)
in sequence to Mutation
class's method to consolidate logic.
- Copy & paste under the new method definintion of
Mutation
class - Then select
mutation.
-
g o
to createpreset-occurrence
. for textmutatin.
. -
c f
orc a f
to change wholemutation.
occurreces in function -
this.
thenescape
. - Now all
mutation.
is now replaced tothis.getPoint(xxx)
,this.getMarker(xxx)
to work inthis
new context.
You want to remove line which include console.log
.
- Search(
/
) - Input pattern:
^.*console\.log*\n
. -
cmd-o
setpreset-occurrence
to line includeconsole.log
-
d G
delete every-console-log-line-from-here-to-end-of-buffer.
The point is 2nd step, use regex pattern to match whole line.(use ^
and \n
)
cmd-d
is mapped to find-and-replace
:select-next.
Which select next occurrences of cursor-word one by one.
cmd-k cmd-d
skips current occurrence then select next, which is good to skip one occurrence, but not good when you want skip more.
Using persistent-selection
this become very easy.
1st line text text
2nd line also include text text text.
3rd text text text
- Place cursor to first
text
in 1st line -
cmd-d
twice to select nexttext
in 1st line, but you want to skip 2nd line'stext
occurrence. - Instead of type
cmd-k cmd-d
three times, typeenter
, which convert real selection topersistent-selection
- Move to 3rd line by
2 j 0
thencmd-d
three times to select threetext
in 3rd line. - Then do whatever you want.
persistent-selection
is treated like a real selection. Operator operate onpersistent-selection
if it exists in buffer.
-
c
to changetext
excepttext
in 2nd line. -
d
to deletetext
excepttext
in 2nd line. -
g U
to upcasetext
excepttext
in 2nd line. -
s (
to to maketext
to(text)
by surround(keymap is just an example when you maps
tosurround
).