Re:Vim Anywhere
by gschier on Saturday February 17, 2018 @12:30AM
(#16399233)
If you're not a heavy Vim user you may not understand but the only way I can describe it is that Vim is different enough that it makes you forget how to edit text the "normal" way. One example is that Vim doesn't require arrow keys, so having to use arrows to navigate text in a normal editor is a huge pain.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
And hjkl is not the arrow keys' replacement, as many non-users think.
There are a hundred other ways to move around a file, each of which are more efficient than hitting a button ten times. Those kinds of things are what makes Vim convenient (though not having to move your hand to the arrow keys for going one line down is pretty convenient, too).
Re:Vim Anywhere
by MaxBarraclough on Saturday February 17, 2018 @04:06PM
(#16402697)
I'm a Vim fan, but that's a little disingenuous.
Ordinary text editors have ctrl-left and ctrl-right, which are equivalent to Vim's w and b. They also have Home/End and ctrl-f.
But w and b are not the end of vi's (let alone vim's/neovim's + plugins') motions.
Re:Vim Anywhere
by MaxBarraclough on Sunday February 18, 2018 @06:16AM
(#16405517)
Sure, but it's not often I win big by using Vim's advanced movement commands.
One of the most useful Vim motions for me has been repeating j / k for n times, e.g using 12j to jump down 12 lines.
Combined with relative line numbers (to show how many lines to jump up / down) this has been a really big win for me to navigate around text.
Shift-G / gg are “big” wins for me on a fairly regular basis.
Re:Vim Anywhere
by MaxBarraclough on Sunday February 18, 2018 @01:20PM
(#16407323)
That's a good example, but I suspect most editors/IDEs have their own equivalent shortcuts.
Apparently in Visual Studio it's SHIFT+CTRL+HOME.
Not all keyboards have a home key and the vast majority have a shift/g key, but yes, i agree.