Chapter 1: Cursor Movement

Welcome to Chapter 1, this chapter will learn simple cursor movement operations.

If you already have a certain foundation, this part can be skipped, directly G to the end of the document according to the operation into the next chapter.

Before starting, press Esc to make sure you are in Normal mode. Motions are not isolated shortcuts to memorize: later you will combine them with delete, change, and copy operations. For now, focus on describing where to move.

Move the cursor

Unit level

• h left one character
• j line down
• k line up
• l right one character

Word level

• w or W move right to the beginning of the word
• e or E move right to the end of the word
• b or B move left to the beginning of the word

Note: Lowercase letters treat word characters as boundaries, uppercase letters treat spaces as boundaries

Try to feel the various movements in the following character blocks!

This project's GitHub url is https://github.com/dofy/learn-vim
Please clone it to your local folder and open the first file which is
named chapter01.md via following command "vim chapter01.md"
and welcome to https://yahaha.net :)

Start on This and use only word motions to reach GitHub, https, and learn-vim. If you overshoot, use b to go back. Notice how w and W behave differently inside a URL.

Block level

• gg to the first line of the document
• G to the last line of the document
• 0 to the beginning of the line (column 1)
• ^ to the first non-whitespace character
• $ to the end of the line
• H move to the top of the screen
• M move to the middle of the screen
• L move to the bottom of the screen
• Ctrl-d move down half a page
• Ctrl-u move up half a page
• Ctrl-f move down one page
• Ctrl-b move up one page
• :<N> or <N>gg jump to line N
• :+<N> or <N>j jump down N lines
• :-<N> or <N>k jump up N lines

Note: A number N can be added before all commands, which means that the command behind it is executed N times. For example, if you want to move down 3 lines, you can use :+3 or 3j to achieve the same effect. In addition, there are actually two commands above: one is executed immediately after typing, such as gg; the other is to enter : first (there will be a / first), this type of command needs to be executed after the input is completed. Press Enter, which is the same in the following tutorials.

Counts and motions

Most motions accept a count. Instead of pressing j ten times, estimate the distance and use 10j. You do not have to guess perfectly: 8j, followed by a small j or k adjustment, is usually faster.

• 3w moves forward three words
• 5j moves down five lines
• 2Ctrl-d moves down two half-pages

Use 5j from this line and then 5k to return. If you miss, u will not help: it undoes text changes, not cursor movement. Move back in the opposite direction instead.

Now you can swim in the current file. When you are familiar with various movement operations, you can locate the current document to the last line by pressing G and enter the next chapter according to the prompt.

Place the cursor anywhere in the file name behind it and press the keyboard gf to enter Chapter 2.