Getting to Black Belt in Vim – Part 3 – Green Belt

In previous posts, we covered basic editing and motions. At green belt level, we’ll learn about getting into insert mode faster i.e. moving to a location and entering insert mode in one command. Then, we’ll cover a few more motions. Finally, we’ll look at jumps and navigating through your jump history.

Green Belt

Insert Mode Shortcuts:

• I (capital i) to go into insert mode at before the first non-blank character on the line¹.
• A to go into insert mode after the last character on the line².
• o to go into insert mode on the next line below, O to go to insert mode on the line above.
• a to go to insert mode after the cursor.
• s to delete a character, then go into insert mode.

Horizontal motions:

• W to go forwards by a WORD, B to go backwards a WORD.
• e to go forwards to the end of a word, ge to go backwards to the end of the word.

Vertical motions:

• <Ctrl> + u to move up by half a screen, <Ctrl> + d to move down by half a screen.
• <Ctrl> + f to move up a page, <Ctrl> + b to move down by a page.
• <line-number> + G to go to the line number you want to go to.

Jumps

• A jump is a command that moves your cursor several lines away. We’ve come across a few of these already, such as “H”, “M”, “L”, “{” or “}”. You can navigate through your jump history by hitting <Ctrl> + o to go backwards (oldest) and <Ctrl> + i to go forwards through your jump list.

In part 4 at blue belt level, we’ll cover visual mode and more motions.

1. This is the equivalent of typing ^ followed by i. Once you’re done, you can exit insert mode by hitting <Esc>. ↩︎
2. This is equivalent of typing $ following by i. Again, you can exit insert mode by hitting <Esc>. ↩︎