Date: 2022-06-02
Time: 13:00–16:00
Room: Stream 2
Level: Beginner
In this tutorial aimed at sysadmins and programmers alike, I will teach attendees many of the features that the standard Unix editor vim provides, but may not be so well known.
When it comes to editing files with vim under Unix, most people have only a basic understanding of vim: opening, switching to insert mode, saving, and exiting the editor. While this suffices for basic editing tasks, there are many more things that vim can do to help with editing text. Since this editor is widely available (in GUI and non-GUI versions, as well as for Windows and Mac), knowing some tricks that can be applied everywhere this editor is installed makes people productive no matter the environment.
This tutorial will focus on people who have little to no prior experience with vim. I will demonstrate many concepts how people can use vim to make their typing life easier. This includes: * Moving around and cursor positioning * Copying, moving, yanking text * Searching and replacing text * Autocompletion (words, lines, filenames, code keywords, etc.) * Connecting to the world outside the editor (i.e. running the editor contents through shell commands and returning the results back into the editor) * using the Leader key to create our own shortcuts * Record and play back macros for common editing tasks * Workspaces and Windows * Changing default settings to make editing more comfortable (vimrc)
This BSD-agnostic tutorial runs for three hours with a break in between. Attendees are encouraged to follow along on their devices, as the tutorial is highly interactive. A script covering the most important concepts we covered will be provided to attendees. Note: we're covering standard vim, but many concepts are also available in nvi/neovim and others.
The following slides have been made available for this session: