From Vim Help

This is an archive of the From Vim Help section on the home page

We occasionally replace the FVH section on the home page, and items are copied to here so anyone interested can browse them.

To discuss suggestions for new items, please edit the talk page.

July 2012

• You can have Vim try to detect whether to ignore case in searches. :help 'smartcase'
• Toggle an option by adding ! (set spell! will turn spell checking on/off). :help :set
• With set, use += to add option flags, or -= to remove them. :help add-option-flags

May 2010

• :verbose abbreviate lists each abbreviation and where it was defined. :help :abbreviate-verbose
• Avoid an insert-mode abbreviation by pressing Ctrl-V (or Ctrl-Q if you use Ctrl-V for paste) before the character after the abbreviation. :help abbreviations
• Setting the 'display' option to include "lastline" will show as much of the final (wrapped) line as will fit on the screen. :help 'display'

April 2010

• Use :set rl! to overcome boredom. :help 'rl'
• Or try :g/^/m0 :help :g :help :m
• And ggg?G can be just as useful. :help g?

March 2010

• Use :source myfile.vim to execute Ex commands (commands prefixed with a ':') from a file. :help :source
• Use :source! myfile.vim to execute normal-mode Vim commands from a file. :help :source
• Use :scriptnames to list all sourced scripts, in order of execution. :help :scriptnames

February 2010

• The system() function runs an external program and captures its output. :help system()
• The 'shell' option determines the shell used to run external programs. :help 'shell'
• The variable v:shell_error holds the return status from the last external program. :help v:shell_error

January 2010

• Use :pwd to show the current directory. :help :pwd
• Use :cd - to change to the previous current directory (before last :cd /my/path). :help :cd-
• Use :lcd /my/path for "local" change directory (this window only). :help :lcd

Previous years

• 2009 From Vim Help
• 2008 From Vim Help