All the right moves

Tip 278 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created 2002 · complexity basic · author vim_power · version 6.0

---

Vim provides many ways to move the cursor. Becoming familiar with them leads to more effective text editing.

h   move one character left
j   move one row down
k   move one row up
l   move one character right
w   move to beginning of next word
b   move to previous beginning of word
e   move to end of word
W   move to beginning of next word after a whitespace
B   move to beginning of previous word before a whitespace
E   move to end of word before a whitespace

All the above movements can be preceded by a count; e.g. 4j moves down 4 lines.

0   move to beginning of line
$   move to end of line
_   move to first non-blank character of the line
g_  move to last non-blank character of the line

gg  move to first line
G   move to last line

ngg move to n'th line of file (n is a number; 12gg moves to line 12)
nG  move to n'th line of file (n is a number; 12G moves to line 12)

H   move to top of screen
M   move to middle of screen
L   move to bottom of screen

zz  scroll the line with the cursor to the center of the screen
zt  scroll the line with the cursor to the top
zb  scroll the line with the cursor to the bottom

Ctrl-D  move half-page down
Ctrl-U  move half-page up
Ctrl-B  page up
Ctrl-F  page down
Ctrl-O  jump to last (older) cursor position
Ctrl-I  jump to next cursor position (after Ctrl-O)
Ctrl-Y  move view pane up
Ctrl-E  move view pane down

n   next matching search pattern
N   previous matching search pattern
*   next whole word under cursor
#   previous whole word under cursor
g*  next matching search (not whole word) pattern under cursor
g#  previous matching search (not whole word) pattern under cursor
gd  go to definition/first occurrence of the word under cursor

%   jump to matching bracket { } [ ] ( )

fX  to next 'X' after cursor, in the same line (X is any character)
FX  to previous 'X' before cursor (f and F put the cursor on X)
tX  til next 'X' (similar to above, but cursor is before X)
TX  til previous 'X'
;   repeat above, in same direction
,   repeat above, in reverse direction

See :help {command} (for example, :help g_) for all of the above if you want more details.

Comments

These instructions are just awesome!