Vim on Jake Worth

Vim Scriptout and Scriptin

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:17:23 -0400

Today I discovered these two Vim flags:

vim -w log.txt file
vim -s log.txt file

The -w flag sends all keystrokes in your session to log.txt. The -s loads Vim and replays all the keystroke back onto that file.

Vim :Tutor Command

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:25:53 -0400

Longtime Vim users know the vimtutor program, which teaches you Vim in Vim. Vim 9.2 shipped with a new :Tutor command that improves on this.

:Tutor

Installing Vim on a Remote Server

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 16:46:12 -0500

Vim-tiny is a great choice for remote server work.

Vim Mappings Verbose

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 16:31:22 -0400

I have a Vim normal mode mapping, and I don’t know where it comes from. My Vim config, a plugin, somewhere else? nmap shows me the mapping:

:nmap gsp
n gsp * 1z=

And verbose nmap shows me where it comes from:

:verbose nmap gsp
n gsp * 1z=
Last set from ~/.vimrc line 111

The setting is coming from inside the .vimrc!

Vim Jump to Previous Occurrence

Tue, 20 May 2025 19:08:16 -0400

In Vim Normal mode, * searches forward for the next occurrence of word. But what goes back?

Vim Scratchpad Part 2

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Today, I’d like to dive deeper into a part of my practice: using a persisted text file for jotting things down. In this post, I’ll explain the ‘why’ behind this technique, and provide an updated version of it.

Vim Scratchpad

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Today I’d like to share a small part of my practice: using a persisted scratchpad text file for jotting things down.

Tmux Application Startup Script

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My development environment depends on several processes running. Here’s how I’ve scripted this setup.

Spell Checking with Vim: Tutorial and Best Practices

Wed, 15 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I write each post for this blog in Vim. Writing in the terminal makes me feel like a programmer, even when I’m not specifically programming. In this post, I’ll share how I spellcheck in Vim.

Select First Spell Suggestion

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 11:58:15 -0400

I use Vim’s spell feature when writing blog posts. Very often, the first suggestion it makes is the one that I choose. Consider a word like ‘Rubysit.’ My dictionary contains the word ‘Rubyist’ (naturally) and that’s what Vim spell is going to suggest to me first. For transposition errors like this I’d like to skip the word picker when possible.

To automatically choose the first suggestion, in normal mode put your cursor over the word and type 1z=.

My psql Config

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

RC files, thought to stand for “run command” files, are read by a program during startup. The file that configures the PostgreSQL REPL psql is called .psqlrc. In this post I’ll share my personal psql configuration.

Solved! How to Exit Vim "Ex" Mode

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

How does one exit Vim “Ex” mode? But first… how did you even get into “Ex” mode?

Autoformat Your Code

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Auto-formatting code is good, and you should be doing it all the time. Why? It helps you write better code in real-time, preempt trivial discussions, and maybe even democratize programming.

Why Vim

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using, teaching, and stanning Vim since almost the beginning of my programming career. Yet, when asked to explain this preference, I stumble. In this post, I’d like to explore why I love Vim.

Refining Your Terminal Aliases

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Any command you type out manually, or even tab-complete a few times, can be shortened. A common shortening technique is the terminal alias. Here are some tips that help me write better aliases and cut my terminal keystrokes.

Jump to N Percent of a File

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 16:54:36 -0500

From normal mode, N% will jump you to that percentage of the file. So 50% jumps to halfway through the file.

Man pages in Vim

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 16:47:07 -0500

Hit K on a keyword, and Vim looks up the program under the keyword. It’s a bit jarring because Vim appears to shell out from your buffer to show the definition.

To see that man page in Vim, load the man.vim plugin from command mode or in your .vimrc:

:runtime! ftplugin/man.vim

Now, you can read man pages as a Vim buffer:

:Man curl

How to Organize JavaScript Imports

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The import statements at the top of a JavaScript component file can be a confusing, duplicative, churning mess. Is there a way to organize them that makes sense and scales? In this post, I’d like to share the way I handle this detail.

Override Vim's Filetype

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:30:27 -0400

Vim’s filetype auto-detection is great for effortless syntax highlighting, but what if a certain kind of file (i.e. Ruby) contains lots of another kind of code (i.e. SQL)? The Ruby code will be highlighted and readable, the SQL a large monochrome blob. Hard to read and reason about. We can do better!

Override the automatic assignment with:

:set ft=sql

This command with no assignment returns the current setting:

:set ft
filetype=lua

We can easily revert to the auto-detected extension as needed.

My Annotated Vim Configuration File

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love Vim. Folks who’ve programmed with me, or attended a Vim Meetup when I was an organizer, can attest. When I was learning to code, getting fast at Vim changed everything for me. After almost a decade using this editor, here are my personal configurations.

Vim Nonrecursive Mappings

Sat, 17 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My first PR to a new Vim plugin was merged this week, check it out, adding non-recursive Vim mappings to vim-termbux.

Vim Regex Word Boundaries

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 07:46:37 -0500

Today while writing a Vim regex to change every instance of it (ignoring larger matches like itemized), we stumbled upon Vim regex word boundary matching.

Given this file:

foo
foobar

The following Vim regex will match on both the first and second line:

:%s/foo/baz/g

But with word boundaries, we’ll only match (and change) the first line, because only the first foo is a standalone word:

:%s/\<foo\>/baz/g

Keyword, Match, and Region in VimScript

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

After a recent talk I gave that included VimScript, an attendee asked a question about the differences between keyword, match, and region following syn in a Vim syntax highlighting file. Here’s my answer.

Vim Buffer Problem

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A few weeks back I tackled the following programming challenge from my colleague Josh Branchaud:

Vim Buffer

I open up a new Vim buffer and type all the numbers 1 to 10,000, separated by spaces. Then, my cat walks on the keyboard and somehow activates a substitution command that replaces all the ‘0’ digits (zeros) with spaces. If I now sum up all the numbers in the buffer, as delineated by spaces, what is the total?

Count Links in a Markdown File

Sun, 14 Feb 2016 17:43:36 -0600

Today I learned a great way to count the links in a README or link collection. Vim Regex!

:%s/- \[//n

In Vimspeak:

On every line, find all of the times where - [ (the beginning of a Markdown bulleted hyperlink) occurs, count them, and report the number of matches.

See :help substitute in Vim for more information.

h/t Josh Branchaud

Get help with Pathogen

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 19:56:33 -0600

Today I found a great command in Pathogen.vim, :Helptags. This is a riff off :helptags {dir}, a Vim feature that builds helptags for directory {dir}.

:Helptags does the same for all the directories in your runtimepath, which defaults on Unix and Mac OS X to:

"$HOME/.vim,
$VIM/vimfiles,
$VIMRUNTIME,
$VIM/vimfiles/after,
$HOME/.vim/after"

The use case here is when you’ve just loaded a new plugin into your Vim bundle, you open up Vim, and :h {my_new_plugin} isn’t ‘helping’ you out.

Change Inner Tag Block

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 18:40:11 -0600

Vim has excellent commands for changing the contents of parentheses (ci(), brackets (ci[), and squiggly braces (ci{) (as well as single quotes, double quotes, backticks, etc.). But what about tags?

Place your cursor anywhere inside the tags, type cit in Visual mode, and this:

<div>Begone</div>

Becomes:

<div></div>

d works too, but I prefer c because it puts you in Insert mode at the end of the opening tag, ready to type.

Increment and Decrement Numbers

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 17:28:17 -0600

Vim has commands built-in to increment and decrement numbers: CTRL-A and CTRL-X, respectively.

Combining this with a macro was a technique we tried today to build a large database migration. We ended up finding a more efficient solution, but it’s still a very magical key combination.

Check out :help CTRL-A for more info.

h/t Josh Branchaud

Delete a Line From Another Line

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 18:50:37 -0600

Today I was cleaning up a test with an extra empty line at the top of the file, away from my Vim cursor. I wanted to delete it… without moving the cursor.

It seems like Vim almost lets you do this, with :[range]d. But it leaves the cursor on the deleted line, which isn’t very magical.

This is the hack we found:

:[range]d

Then:

''

'' returns the cursor to the last jump point.

Explore Buffers with BufExplorer

Mon, 12 Oct 2015 17:38:15 -0500

I’m a huge fan of Vim buffers. I try to have my buffer list roughly mirror the files I am currently holding in my brain.

The BufExplorer Vim plugin helps, and is included in the Hashrocket Dotmatrix. Today I learned to use the command \bs, which opens a colorful buffer list that you can navigate with Vim directions.

https://github.com/jlanzarotta/bufexplorer

Edit the Current File Always

Fri, 29 May 2015 00:25:49 -0500

The Vim command :e edits a file. Add a bang, :e!, to edit the current file ‘always’, discarding any changes to the current buffer.

This is useful if you rename a file with a new file extension (i.e. .txt to .rb). :e! reloads the file in Vim, picking up any customizations you have in your configuration files such as syntax highlighting.

Find and Replace Across Files

Thu, 21 May 2015 09:47:13 -0500

Vim can find and replace strings across files, just like other text editors. It’s really (sort of) easy.

First load all the files you want to change into the buffer with a splatted directory.

:args path/to/files/*/*

Then, execute the substitution.

:argdo %s/old_string/new_string/ge | update

The e flag is important; it tells Vim not to issue an error if the search pattern fails. This will prevent No Match errors from breaking the chain.

Call a Vimscript Method in Vim

Sun, 17 May 2015 17:00:04 -0500

To call a Vimscript method in Vim, first source the file.

:source ~/path/to/vimscript.vim

Next, put the cursor over the method call, and run that line.

:exec getline(".")

Current Value of a Setting

Thu, 14 May 2015 11:00:00 -0500

Check the value of any Vim setting by adding a ? to the end of its name.

# Validate spelling is turned off
:set spell?
=> nospell
# Validate incremental search is turned on
:set incsearch?
=> :incsearch

Jump to the First Non-Blank Character

Tue, 12 May 2015 18:45:11 -0500

With Vim you can jump down any n amount of lines with n + j, and back up with n + k.

An alternate command is n + +, which jumps down to the first non-blank character, and n + -, which jumps back up to the first non-blank character.

Close a File

Fri, 08 May 2015 09:19:58 -0500

In Vim there are many ways to close a file. One of the best is :x, also know as :xit.

:x writes and quits a file when changes have been made, like :wq, but with one less keystroke.

An important distinction:

:x and :wq are similar, but not identical commands.

The difference is that :wq writes the current file and quits, as long as the file is not read-only and has a name, while :x only writes if changes have been made. So, if you were to generate a file with Vim, make no changes, and try to write and quit with :x, the file would not be written. Doing the same thing with :wq would write the file.

Sort Alphabetically

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:05:31 -0500

One way to make a list nicer to read is to sort it. Vim comes with a command built in for just this purpose.

Here is a snippet from a Gemfile:

gem 'coffee-rails', '~> 4.1.0'
gem 'uglifier', '>= 1.3.0'
gem 'sass-rails', '~> 5.0'
gem 'puma'
gem 'gravatar_image_tag'
gem 'authem'
gem 'jquery-rails'
gem 'pg'
gem 'redcarpet'
gem 'rails_12factor', group: :production
gem 'sdoc', '~> 0.4.0', group: :doc

These gems might have been added during the development process. To sort them, enter visual mode, highlight the desired range, and enter :sort. Here’s the result:

Delete Comments

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0500

:g/^\s*#/d will remove comment lines from a file with Vim.