I’d like actual examples instead of “I work faster”, something like “I can move straight to the middle of the file with 7mv” or “I can keep 4 different text snippets in memory and paste each with a number+pt, like 2pt”, things that you actually use somewhat frequently instead of what you can do, but probably only did once.
A godsend for saving time - the
ab
(abbreviation) command. This command lets you shorten a long sequence of characters (be it a text or a complex command) into another sequence of any length. It works in both insert mode and command mode. If you frequently edit text using a lengthy command, this feature will significantly save you time. For example::ab ul s/\<./\u&/g
to capitalize every word in a line. When you enter command mode (type:
) and typeul
, vim will automatically expand it tos/\<./\u&/g
for you.Additionally, the
map
command can save even more time, but IMO theab
command offers more control for handling various cases. In my example, you can useul
to only capitalize the lines that have a specific pattern using the global commandg
.Another overlooked aspect is the
.exrc
file. Enabling it withset exrc
in your config allows for different setups based on different situations. For instance, when writing notes, I prefer to have line breaks on to make the text look nicer on the screen. In contrast, when writing code, I don’t require this option. I simply need to placeset linebreak
in the.exrc
file in the note-writing directory to adjust accordingly.