Learn to use help

Tip 882 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created 2005 · complexity basic · author David S · version 6.0

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Vim's help is remarkably helpful, but in order to use it effectively you need to spend a few minutes learning how it is organised.

Getting started

Try these examples:

• Enter :help to browse help. Scroll down the help page to see the quickref and tutor links, and the table of contents.
• Enter :help pattern for help on the topic pattern (for example).
• :h pattern is the same (the :help command can be abbreviated).

Command completion can be used when entering a help topic:

• Type :h patt then press Ctrl-D to list all topics that contain "patt".
• Type :h patt then press Tab to scroll through the topics that start with "patt".
• If you have set the 'wildmenu' option (e.g. by using :set wildmenu), then :h patt followed by <Tab> opens a menu on the statusline, with all help topics containing "patt". You can select any item in the menu with the arrow keys or more presses of the <Tab> key to fill in the rest of your command line.

Links:

• Enter :h to open the main help page.
• Type /quick to search for "quick" (should find the quickref link).
• Press Ctrl-] to follow the link (jump to the quickref topic).
• After browsing the quickref topic, press Ctrl-T to go back to the previous topic.
• You can also press Ctrl-O to jump to older locations, or Ctrl-I to jump to newer locations.

Searching:

• Search within a help file using / like you would when searching any file.
• Search all the help files with the :helpgrep command, for example:

:helpgrep \csearch.\{,12}file

\c means the pattern is case insensitive.

The pattern finds "search" then up to 12 characters followed by "file".

You will then see the first match. To see other matches for the same pattern, use:

:cnext

:cprev

:cnfile

:cpfile

:cfirst

:clast

and even

:cc

which brings you back to the current match after you scrolled the helpfile, or

:copen

which will list out all the matches in a separate window. Read up on these commands with the :help entry for each of them!

Each week (or more often if you prefer), read a new section from the :help page to learn something new!

Context

Each help topic has a context:

Prefix	Example	Context
:	:h :r	ex command (command starting with a colon)
none	:h r	normal mode
v_	:h v_r	visual mode
i_	:h i_CTRL-W	insert mode
c_	:h c_CTRL-R	ex command line
/	:h /\r	search pattern (in this case, :h \r also works)
'	:h 'ro'	option
-	:h -r	Vim argument (starting Vim)

Sometimes you want to know what a particular control key means to Vim. For example, to see all help topics containing "ctrl-r", type :h ctrl-r then press Ctrl-D. The following examples show the help for pressing various keys in different contexts.

Example	Help for key
:h CTRL-R	Ctrl-R in normal mode
:h i_CTRL-R	Ctrl-R in insert mode
:h c_CTRL-R	Ctrl-R in command mode
:h v_CTRL-V	Ctrl-V in visual mode

Simplify help navigation

The following mappings simplify navigation when viewing help:

• Press Enter to jump to the subject (topic) under the cursor.
• Press Backspace to return from the last jump.
• Press s to find the next subject, or S to find the previous subject.
• Press o to find the next option, or O to find the previous option.

Create file ~/.vim/ftplugin/help.vim (Unix) or $HOME/vimfiles/ftplugin/help.vim (Windows) containing:

nnoremap <buffer> <CR> <C-]>
nnoremap <buffer> <BS> <C-T>
nnoremap <buffer> o /'\l\{2,\}'<CR>
nnoremap <buffer> O ?'\l\{2,\}'<CR>
nnoremap <buffer> s /\|\zs\S\+\ze\|<CR>
nnoremap <buffer> S ?\|\zs\S\+\ze\|<CR>

The following mappings (which can go in your vimrc) simplify navigating the results of quickfix commands such as (among others) :helpgrep

:nnoremap <S-F1>  :cc<CR>
:nnoremap <F2>    :cnext<CR>
:nnoremap <S-F2>  :cprev<CR>
:nnoremap <F3>    :cnfile<CR>
:nnoremap <S-F3>  :cpfile<CR>
:nnoremap <F4>    :cfirst<CR>
:nnoremap <S-F4>  :clast<CR>

References

• :help 
• :help :help
• :help :helpgrep
• :help helphelp.txt
• :help quickref.txt

See also

• Remember to search this wiki (see 'search' in the sidebar)!
• Search the FAQ and other guides on our documentation page
• Search the archives of the Vim mailing lists

Comments

Also see the wildmenu. My settings:

set wildmenu wildmode=longest:full,full

What it does:

• First tab: longest match, list in the statusbar.
• Following tabs: cycle through matches.