Vim Mappings Verbose

I have a Vim normal mode mapping, and I don’t know where it comes from. My Vim config, a plugin, somewhere else? nmap shows me the mapping: :nmap gsp n gsp * 1z= And verbose nmap shows me where it comes from: :verbose nmap gsp n gsp * 1z= Last set from ~/.vimrc line 111 The setting is coming from inside the .vimrc!

July 22, 2025

Vim Jump to Previous Occurrence

In Vim Normal mode, * searches forward for the next occurrence of word. But what goes back? ...

May 20, 2025

Vim Scratchpad Part 2

Today, I’d like to dive deeper into a part of my practice: using a persisted text file for jotting things down. In this post, I’ll explain the ‘why’ behind this technique, and provide an updated version of it. ...

October 26, 2022

Vim Scratchpad

Today I’d like to share a small part of my practice: using a persisted scratchpad text file for jotting things down. ...

August 25, 2022

Spell Checking with Vim: Tutorial and Best Practices

I write each post for this blog in Vim. Writing in the terminal makes me feel like a programmer, even when I’m not specifically programming. In this post, I’ll share how I spellcheck in Vim. ...

June 15, 2022

Select First Spell Suggestion

I use Vim’s spell feature when writing blog posts. Very often, the first suggestion it makes is the one that I choose. Consider a word like ‘Rubysit.’ My dictionary contains the word ‘Rubyist’ (naturally) and that’s what Vim spell is going to suggest to me first. For transposition errors like this I’d like to skip the word picker when possible. To automatically choose the first suggestion, in normal mode put your cursor over the word and type 1z=.

June 14, 2022

Solved! How to Exit Vim "Ex" Mode

How does one exit Vim “Ex” mode? But first… how did you even get into “Ex” mode? ...

April 6, 2022

Why Vim

I’ve been using, teaching, and stanning Vim since almost the beginning of my programming career. Yet, when asked to explain this preference, I stumble. In this post, I’d like to explore why I love Vim. ...

February 23, 2022

Jump to N Percent of a File

From normal mode, N% will jump you to that percentage of the file. So 50% jumps to halfway through the file.

January 23, 2022

Man pages in Vim

Hit K on a keyword, and Vim looks up the program under the keyword. It’s a bit jarring because Vim appears to shell out from your buffer to show the definition. To see that man page in Vim, load the man.vim plugin from command mode or in your .vimrc: :runtime! ftplugin/man.vim Now, you can read man pages as a Vim buffer: :Man curl

November 11, 2021

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