vim is an awesome editor by Bram Moolenaar, based on the original vi by Bill Joy, but with lots of improvements added on to it. This tutorial covers the most important functions if vi’s input model, leaving out the more advanced regular expressions/ex command line material. This should be a very helpful in beginning to becoming a vi/vim expert.

With the exception of the external filter feature (“!”), all functions shown are supported by the ViEmu, the commercial add-in that provides advanced vi-vim emulation in Visual Studio.

I am not saying that learning vi or vim is easy, but it’s not that difficult either. It is faster, more powerful and more productive than any other editor. So investing time and effort in learning it will definitely pay off.

I have provided for those who want to learn vi/vim, a graphical cheat sheet, and I have discovered that it is easier to learn in this manner.

Graphical Cheat Sheet

(click to enlarge/download

This is a single page covering the full vi/vim input model, all key functions, and all major features. It can be seen as a compressed vi/vim manual. Clicking on the image below will give you a full size graphical idea of what I am talking about; or you can download the vector based, scalable SVG version (in .zip format. Open, view and print the SVG using the open source Inkscape application; or the Adobe plug-in for Internet Explorer. Firefox is not recommended because it breaks the layout for some reason and renders it with no anti-alias).

Graphical Cheat Sheet Based Tutorials

(click to enlarge/downlad)

This tutorial is made up of 7 lessons that encompass the major commands in vi/vim. They are planned so that you get to learn the easiest, simplest and the most useful first, and the more advanced ones later. In fact, using only the commands you learn in lesson 1, you can already start editing in vi/vim in a similar way to how you would in a regular editor. Lesson 2 introduces the very powerful “operators” that are exclusive to vi/vim. The rest of the lessons advance from there. Each of these thumbnails link to high-resolution, detailed images. Or you can download the entire tutorial in a single zip file with all the images, or a single zip file with all the SVGs.