I find a large number of people around me who have used vim a few times while writing programs. Very few of them have grown into becoming effective vim users. The majority drop out because of its initially daunting interface. A good number of the interested users switch to emacs, because they think the 'power' just isn't there with vim. I am not saying emacs is bad, but I just cannot stand decisions made on lack of information.
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Member since:
2005-08-27
I found the following helpful for cases where you are on a system and want to turn off some very annoying vim settings.
http://www.vim.org/tips/tip.php?tip_id=330
Add to personal .vimrc:
set nocindent
set nosmartindent
set noautoindent
filetype indent off
I use this in case a GNU system already has vim that I didn't remove and already replace with nvi.
Member since:
2005-11-05
Debian have a reference card for the main commands in vim. I think it comes as a pdf. It fits exactly on two sheets of A4, so you can double-side it, laminate it and keep it around - very handy. I'm sure the card doesn't cover nearly enough ground for the serious user or programmer, but it's really helpful for lighter stuff: editing config files or dealing with no-X things, like editing a file on another machine over ssh. For quick and simple things, I reckon joe has a lot going for it even though it's not nearly as powerful. But I find joe's commands easier to remember for some reason.
Member since:
2006-12-30
This is the original one 
http://www.gentoo.org/images/vicheat-compound.png
Member since:2007-11-29
And this is the most useful one
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/101/292400425_6bba80c95f.jpg?v=0
Member since:
2005-08-29
Member since:
2005-07-12
Member since:
2005-07-17
I thought this article was filled with a lot of good tidbits, however one comment was made that made me cringe!
I assume you know how to split windows, and all that jazzy stuff.
This is the one feature that totally expected to be covered. Every time I use vim and the split window feature with someone next to me they are instantly like "WOW! How do you do that?" I think this is one of vims most flexible and underused features that should have been granted space in this article. Especially when insertion and copy/paste functions are covered. I give this article a B+ overall, but come on guy! Cover the split windows.
Member since:2005-07-12
I agree totally. Splitting windows is one of my "neat" selling points for Vim, to my hard-core vi-user friends. Once they see me split a window horizontally, then resize them, and split the top window vertically, they become totally impressed.
Actually, my best selling point is when I edit multiple files, and show how to move between them, then copy and paste between buffers.
Oh, and we won't even talk about the syntax highlighting. That's always good for a few "oooh"'s and "ah"s. :-)
Member since:
2005-11-15
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2006-01-02
Member since:
2005-07-06
I once made an effort to learn vim and emacs because if they are so hard to use, they must be superior right?
But now I only use the basics in vim when I have to and avoid emacs. Coding is done in a real IDE and for other tasks I use editors that are both powerful and usable without reading books and tutorials.
Life is too short for vim.
Member since:2005-07-22
Learning vi or vim seems to be most useful if you're on a *nix terminal, since the server is bound to at least have vi (emacs is more resource-heavy). I actually have a used copy of the O'Reilly vi book, but I don't use or admin headless servers, so I just use GUI text editors.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I really like Vim and used it on small to large scale projects. It has helped me create a video game (in C for Linux PDA), cms system (content mgt in PHP5) and a bunch of other projects.
I also now use Komodo Edit (free ed.) and it's nice as well. Sometimes a full GUI is nice.
Of course having a background as a Linux/Unix admin. Vi/Vim has served me well (Perl, Shell, Python scripting).
Go Vim!
