I have been using Vim for the past three months and here I am trying to write down how I have learned to use Vim **this time**.
As always, I started with Vimtutor but I have one more principle this time: to get used to a tool that is already hard enough to learn, I need to make using it as friction-less as possible. As a result, it won’t be ideal to search the Internet every time I want to do something.
So I listed all of the commands I found useful from Vimtutor on a piece of paper, like
# Movement
# Moving the cursor
# Move forward
- [nG] jumps to the n-th line
- [G] jumps to the bottom of the file
- [$] jumps to the end of the line
- ...
# Move backward# Editing
# Cut, Copy and Paste
# ...
# Undo and Redo
# ...
I listed them all out like in a manual and kept it around since then.
After Vimtutor, I asked myself what other commands I will need to make Vim at least a bit more useful and I listed all of the features I need and tried to find the corresponding commands.
Then, I tried to edit my vimrc file to make Vim slightly prettier (color scheme, line number, etc.) and even used a basic vimrc file generated by vimconfig.com and after that my Vim gradually became what it’s like now and I know enough commands to no longer feel reluctant to use it.
As usual, it’s when one would think about trying plugins but I tried my best not to since I don’t want to make my vim setup a wearing mess, and for the same reason I would recommend other Vim beginners to avoid copying others’ vimrc file. Meanwhile, I ran into many inspiring YouTube videos, such as How to Do 90% of What Plugins Do (With Just Vim), and the Missing Semester lectures and blog posts like this. I learned a lot from these videos and studied the vimrc files they provide. Almost since then, I began to tinker my vimrc file from time to time and use the :help command more and more and also since then I think I began to feel really comfortable with Vim.
But that’s not the end of the story. Vim is not something you can learn in a couple months, and you may find new commands and tricks all the time (actually I’ve spent more time solving tricking problems than learning it). I read two books on Vim recently, Practical Vim and Mastering Vim, and personally, Practical Vim is more like a large collection of advanced tricks and therefore I would recommend beginners to avoid the former for now but read the latter, which covers everything from installing Vim to using plugins (more on these books).
Background: I was an Emacs user, and while I don’t use it anymore, I have remapped my CapsLock key to Ctrl, which makes Vim (and tmux) easier, too. Besides, I happened to be using my Mac at the time, and personally I thought it would be much easier to use Vim on macOS than on, say, WSL, since you will have less troubles there and you will be less likely to feel burnout.
