Personal Vim Tips

Delete in insert mode

To delete a character, word or line while in Insert mode, Vim Command Line mode or Shell Command Line we have the following shortcuts available:

<C-h> " Backspace
<C-w> " Delete back one word
<C-u> " Delete back to start of line
<C-k> " Delete forward to end of line

Sessions

Everyone probably already knows, this, but you can do

  :mks ~/mysession.vim

  Then to open session

  vim -S ~/mysession.vim

When opening vim to load all your tabs, files and windows back just how they were.

Sort properties in CSS

If we want to order the lines in the CSS selector alphabetically, we just select the lines and type :sort while in visual mode and then we have them sorted.

h4 {
    font-size: 11px;
    margin: 15px;
    background: red;
    }

Vim Easymotion

Configure Vim Easymotion to use space as trigger. Vim Easymotion Typing space and then typing, seems natural.

let g:EasyMotion_leader_key = '<space>'

Vim and system clipboard

Copy text to system clipboard. Maped to leader + y

function! CopyText()
    normal gv"+y
    :call system('xsel -ib', getreg('+'))
endfunction
vmap <leader>y :call CopyText()<cr>

Rename current file

Rename current file. Maped to leader + rf

function! RenameFile()
  let old_name = expand('%')
  let new_name = input('New file name: ', expand('%'), 'file')
  if new_name != '' && new_name != old_name
    exec ':saveas ' . new_name
    exec ':silent !rm ' . old_name
    redraw!
  endif
endfunction
map <leader>rf :call RenameFile()<cr>

Vim Tips