vim For Emacs Users

Absolute Essentials

Here's what you really need to know to get off the ground:

• Unlike Emacs, vim is a modal editor: the keys on the keyboard do different things depending on which mode you are in, and a mode in vim is a persistent state of the editor: it stays in whatever mode it's in until explicitly instructed to change.

  The word "mode" here is not related to Emacs major or minor modes. In Emacs, a "mode" is basically a strategy for presenting data to the user, along with keymaps to let the use interact with the data. Nearly every Emacs mode, however, works in essentially the same way: you can type to insert data, and if you want to do something else, you must use an auxiliary key like Ctrl, Meta, or Esc to interact with the editor.

  In vim, by contrast, a "mode" is a global state of the editor. There are essentially just two modes: normal mode and insert mode. Vim does have behavior resembling Emacs's major modes; for example, a Vim plug-in can define file-type-specific syntax highlighting and keymaps. However, when the word "mode" is used in vim documentation, it always refers to the global state of the editor - whether inserting is enabled or not.

• By default, vim starts in normal mode, in which the keys on the keyboard perform commands, rather than inserting text. This is usually where you need to be to do anything more complicated than simple typing.
• Esc will always return you to normal mode. Pressing ESC while you're in normal mode has no effect, except possibly to elicit an annoyed beep from vim.
• The i key will put you in insert mode, wherein whatever you type gets added to the document you are editing.
• The Insert key toggles between normal mode, insert mode, and overwrite mode (a variant of insert mode in which whatever you type replaces existing text).

^X ^S ^X ^C

Esc Z Z

Saves the current file and exits vim. You need the ESC to get out of insert mode, if you happen to be there.

^X ^S

Esc : w

Saves the current file without exiting.

^X ^C

Esc : q !

This takes you out of vim without saving your work.

^D

x

When not in insert mode, the "x" key deletes the character under the cursor. In insert mode, the backspace and Del keys work as expected under vim (but not necessarily all vi variants). The only thing you cannot delete with "x" while in normal mode is a newline. To delete a newline, type "J" while in normal mode, which "J"oins the current line with the next line.