Vim - Introduction

Vim stands for Vi IMproved. It used to be Vi IMitation, but there are so many improvements that a name change was appropriate. Vim is a text editor which includes almost all the commands from the Unix program "Vi" and a lot of new ones. It is very useful for editing programs and other plain text.

     All commands are given with the keyboar. This has the advantage that you can keep your fingers on the keyboard and your eyes on the screen. For those who want it, there is mouse support and a GUI version with scrollbars and menus.

    An overview of this manual can be found in the file "help.txt", It can be accessed from within Vim with the <Help> or <F1> key and with the :help command(just type ":help", without the bars or quotes).

    The 'helpfile' option can be set to the name of the help file, in case it is not located in the default place,. You can jump to subjects like with tags: Use CTRL-] to jump to a subject under the cursor, use CTRL-T to jump back.

    Throughout this manual the differences between Vi and Vim are mentioned in curly braces, like this: {Vi does not have on-line help}. for summary of the differences between Vim and Vi.

    This manual refers to Vim on various machines. There may be small differences between different computers and terminals. Besides the remarks given in this document, there is a separate document for each supported system,

    Vim is pronounced as one word, like Jim, not vi-ai-em. It's written with a capital, since it's a name, again like Jim.

    This manual is a reference for all the Vim commands and options. This is not an introduction to use of Vi or Vim, it gets a bit complicated here and there. For beginners, there is a hands-on tutor. To learn using Vim, read the user manual usr_toc.txt

    There are many books on Vi that contain a section for beginners. there are two books I can recommand:

    "Vim - Vi Improved" by Steve Oualline

    This is the very first book completely dedicated to Vim. It is very good for beginners. The most often used commands are explained with pictures and examples. The less often used commands are also explained, the more advanced features are summarized. There is a comprehensive index and a quick reference. Parts of this book have been included in the user manual frombook.

Published by New Riders Publishing. ISBN:0735710015

For more information try one of these:

        http://iccf-holland.org/click5.html