Linux Editor

A text editor on Linux, similar to Microsoft Word, Visual Studo Code on Windows, is a must-have application. Most of them are all GUI-based. However, this posts will introduce command line text editor for Linux.

Common Text Viewer (DO NOT Support Edit Function):

• cat
• more
• less
• head
• tail

Common Text Editor:

• nano
• vi / vim
• emacs

The posts will only present part of common and useful functions of the editors, please click the related links to learn more!

less Viewer

Cursor Movement

Search

VI/VIM Editor

Three VI/VIM edit mode:

• Command Mode (Default)
• Insert Mode /** Press ESC return to Command Mode **/
• Visual Mode /** Press ESC return to Command Mode **/

VI/VIM Cheat Sheet

Command Mode

Cursor Movement

Save the file and Exit the Editor

Delete/Cut/Undo/Redo

Copy/Paste

Insert Mode

Enter insert mode

Visual Mode

Some other useful techniques

Select copy contents

Press v start visual mode, move the cursor to select the contents, then press y copy, move the cursor to where you want to paste, press p.

Comment mutiles lines of code

Using Ctrl + v start visial block mode, select all the lines you want to comment. Then, press capitalized I insert the begining of the line, put whatever // or #. Press ESC twice.

Manipulate all characters inside brackets/quotes

Delete all characters inside brackets/quotes:

something="This is a string." --> something=""
(123456) --> ()

1. Move the cursor inside the brackets/quotes under the normal/command mode
2. Press keyborad shortcut: d + i + brackets/quotes, for example, remove all characters inside the quotes is d + i + "

Explain: d is for delete, i is define a range, then brackets/quotes is a flag.

Copy all characters inside brackets/quotes:

1. Move the cursor inside the brackets/quotes under the normal/command mode
2. Press keyborad shortcut: y + i + brackets/quotes, for example, copy all characters inside the quotes is y + i + "

Customize Vim (Plugins)

Vim editor is already powerful enough out of the box, but we can install some plugins to personalize it.

Notice: Installing to many plugins will effect the editor performance.

vim-plug

vim-plug is a minimalist plugin manager

Unix/Linux Installation

curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

For other system environment, please refer vim-plug GitHub readme.

vim-airline

vim-airline is a lean & mean status/tabline for vim that's light as air.

Installing vim-airline (and themes) is adding the following to .vimrc:

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline'
Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline-themes'
call plug#end()

Then, run:

:PlugInstall

Other Configurations:

(Optional: you can put them into .vimrc)

"----------Plug vim-airline/vim-airline configuration----------
let g:airline#extensions#tabline#enabled = 1 " Enable the list of buffers
if !exists('g:airline_symbols')
    let g:airline_symbols = {}
endif
let g:airline_symbols.colnr = ' ' "Fix the status bar text display problem
" ~/full/path-to/file-name.js
let g:airline#extensions#tabline#formatter = 'default'  " f/p/file-name.js
let g:airline#extensions#tabline#formatter = 'jsformatter' " path-to/f
let g:airline#extensions#tabline#formatter = 'unique_tail' " file-name.js
let g:airline#extensions#tabline#formatter = 'unique_tail_improved' " f/p/file-name.js

For more settings, please visit Getting started with vim-airline.

Related Posts

• Linux Basic Shell Commands

References

Vim Cheat Sheet

边用边学Vim —— 整体操作括号/引号内的字符

Getting started with vim-airline