Topic: Intro to vi
Author: Trispis
Summary: Trispis gives a quick and dirty tour of vi, a text editor sure to
exist on virtually any unix (or unix clone). Clear and straightforward,
this covers everything you'll need to get started editing those config
files on your *nix box.

<101> Trispis says, "vi"
<101> Trispis says, "vi is a very powerful editor, which comes as a core
component of almost every unix or unix clone (linux, *bsd, etc.)."
<101> Trispis says, "vi has two 'modes' of operation."
<101> Trispis says, "one mode is 'control mode'."
<101> Trispis says, "the other mode is 'input mode'"
<101> Trispis says, "in control mode, all of the keyboard keys have 'control'
actions (such as deleting, copying, pasting, etc.)."
<101> Trispis says, "in input mode, the keyboard keys act as normal 'typing'
keys."
<101> Trispis says, "The best way to illustrate the rest of this is with
'hands on' practice."
<101> Trispis says, "so..."
<101> Trispis says, "in a unix shell, at the prompt, type: vi testfile.txt"
<101> Trispis says, "this will bring up a blank screen with tildes (~'s) all
down the left hand side of the screen"
<101> Trispis says, "that's what vi looks like."
<101> Trispis says, "at this point, you want to input some text, so you need
to go into 'input mode'. To do this, press the 'i' key."
<101> Trispis says, "after doing that, you'll see at the bottom of your screen
something like: -- INSERT --"
<101> Trispis says, "this means you're in input mode and your input type is
'insert' (as opposed to 'replace', aka typeover, which is another input type
you can use)."
<101> Trispis says, "Now, type some text: The quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog. 1234567890."
<101> Trispis says, "Now, press the 'Esc' key. This will take you back to
control mode."
<101> Trispis says, "In a moment, I'll show you how to save and quit, but
right now I want to illustrate some control mode features."
<101> Trispis says, "using the cursor keys (aka the arrow keys) move the
cursor left so that it rests on the '1' in the string of numbers."
<101> Trispis says, "now press the 'x' key, and notice that the 'x' key acts
like the 'delete' key (this is only true in control mode)."
<101> Trispis says, "now press 'dw' and notice that 'dw' deletes the whole
string of numbers (dw == delete word)."
<101> Trispis says, "now press 'dd' and notice that 'dd' deletes the whole
*LINE*."
<101> Trispis says, "Okay, now that we've deleted everything. It'd be nice to
know how to recover from an error, if you delete something you didn't meant
to."
<101> Trispis says, "simple."
<101> Trispis says, "press the 'u' key."
<101> Trispis says, "(u == undo)."
<101> Trispis says, "this will undo the 'dd' you just did."
<101> Viila says, "Does VI have multiple levels of undo?"
<101> Trispis says, "press the 'u' key again, and it will undo the 'dw' you
did. And press it again, and it will undo the 'x' that you did. (not sure how
many 'undos' vi will remember, but it's definitely more than 5)."
<101> Viila says, "Apparently it does :)"
<101> Javelin says, "vim does, original vi doesn't."
<101> Trispis says, "evidently my vi is aliased to vim, then."
<101> Trispis says, "cuz my vi has multiple levels of undo."
<101> Trispis says, "anyway, moving along..."
<101> Trispis says, "some ways to enter 'input/insert' mode. 'i' (lowercase)
== begin inserting at the cursor's present location. 'I' (uppercase) == Begin
inserting text at the beginning of the current line. 'a' (lowercase) == begin
inserting at the location immediately after the cursor's present location. 'A'
(uppercase) == begin inserting text at the end of the current line."
<101> Trispis says, "And only one way to return to control mode: Esc."
<101> Trispis says, "dd == delete the current line."
<101> Trispis says, "5dd == delete the next 5 lines, starting with the current
line."
<101> Trispis says, "dw == delete the current (or next, if at a space) word."
<101> Trispis says, "5dw == delete the next 5 words."
<101> Trispis says, "u == undo."
<101> Trispis says, "Finally, to save and/or exit."
<101> Trispis says, "Press 'Esc' (to enter control mode)."
<101> Trispis says, "type -> :w (colon w) and press enter. (the colon is to
enter 'command mode' from control mode, allowing you to issue commands to
vi)."
<101> Trispis says, "colon w (:w) == write (or 'save') the file."
<101> Trispis says, "colon q (:q) == quit vi"
<101> Trispis says, "if you open a file, make some changes (but haven't saved)
and want to quit without saving, do --> :q! (colon q exclamation)"
<101> Trispis says, "colon q exclamation (:q!) == quit without saving."
<101> Trispis says, "and finally, a 'quick save'... you made a small change to
a file (a typo in a news file, for example) and you want to save and exit and
be done... then ... colon w q (:wq)"
<101> Trispis says, "colon w q (:wq) == write and quit (aka save and exit)."
<101> Trispis says, "In summary (for quick editing)..."
<101> Trispis says, "at the prompt: vi <file> (will either start a new file,
if <file> doesn't exist, or open an existing file if there is one)."
<101> Trispis says, "'i' to enter 'input/insert' mode."
<101> Trispis says, "(note, while in insert mode, backspace and delete usually
behave as intended, depending on your system's configuration)."
<101> Trispis says, "'esc' to return to control mode."
<101> Trispis says, "to save --> :w"
<101> Trispis says, "(note, you cannot 'unsave' -- once you 'write' it's done
-- if you want to undo the changes, use 'u' and then write again)"
<101> Trispis says, "to quit --> :q"
<101> Trispis says, "to quit without saving (explicitly: ignore changes since
last write) --> :q!"
<101> Trispis says, "to save and exit (write and quit) --> :wq"
<101> Trispis says, "this concludes the quick and dirty lecture on vi."
<101> Javelin says, "Highly recommended site for a vi/vim reference card of
commands: http://vh224401.truman.edu/~dbindner/mirror/"