| Two very general suggestions, pretty obvious, but hopefully of some help. 1. The really obvious: You find yourself wanting to do something that is taking too many keystrokes. Think about what you're doing and how it could be improved. It might mean mapping a key to a series of commands or dreaming up a plugin you could write. When you do the latter, look around for one that is solving a similar problem; even if it doesn't directly solve your original problem it might be useful. I find myself trying out people's plugins, and often times they don't turn out to be useful and get deleted. 2. Something that is already in my workflow amazes me in its efficiency. Think about what makes this really cool and useful, and you might be able to think about how this technique can either apply to other situations. There are some “breakthrough” improvements that I've had, so I'll share the ones I can think of. - f and F for hitting some character on a line. I still use h, l, b, B, w, W, e, E and the others, but f/F is what I usually think to do. t/T also comes to mind of course, and these are especially powerful in concert with others, for example I use combos like f(ct) enough that they're in muscle memory. - % - esc is mapped to C-[ by default. I've been using esc, and am comfortable with it, but I'm starting to get used to this, and it's likely going to be faster in the future. - block visual mode C-v is really useful - some emacs-esque keys are available in insert mode. I use C-b, C-f, C-a and C-e quite often there - I mapped C-j and C-k to do 3 j / k which helps me quickly go up and down a document Beginner lessons (not for you, but in case someone else can be helped): - Stay the out of insert mode. This is often my first tip for someone starting out with vim: you're not going to be comfortable until you find yourself being in command mode all the time and only incidentally in insert - Never ever reach for the cursor keys. hjkl are there for a reason, and if you feel uncomfortable using them now, get over it, you'll thank yourself very soon. Thanks for posting this question, because now I can ask this: For the vim masters, what changes really improved the way you worked with vim? You can also rest comfortably in the knowledge that most vim and emacs users probably feel the same way, or so I assume. Anyone out there feel like their vim workflow doesn't incrementally improve? I don't think I've used it long enough to be a judge of this, but I find I'm getting better with use, though the improvement curve has definitely dropped off. |