[RiderOfGiraffes]

I'm disappointed. I guess I'm not the intended audience, but I was hoping to learn about the windowing operations. The simple stuff in this "cheatsheet" is stuff anyone other than a complete beginner will use absolutely all the time. Windowing makes vi fantastic - I need to learn it.

Note to self: Learn the windowing operations in vi.

Ctrl-p and Ctrl-n are the truly awesome commands for programmers.

[brianto2010]

Try reading the help section on windowing:

  :help window

Here are some basics:

Split to a new file (create a new window)

  :split  [file]
  :vsplit [file]

Switch windows

  C-w [movement-key]
  C-w C-w

Resizing windows (w/o mouse)

  C-w [row-size] _
  C-w [col-size] |

Here is a tutorial that has stuff on windows and tabs (if you want) (pdf):

http://research.iiit.ac.in/~smr/data/advanced_vim_tutorial.p...

This is for Vim, though. I'm not sure if it will work for Vi.

> The simple stuff in this "cheatsheet" is stuff anyone other than a complete beginner will use absolutely all the time.

Not exactly...

Over time, as you memorize commands, you'll gradually become less and less dependent on the cheat sheet.

Even so, I doubt that this will work. I started using Vim by learning one or two commands at a time, not a whole bunch at once, and it worked for me. I believe that a beginner would use this cheat sheet as a crutch because the beginner would use it "absolutely all the time."

Dumb question, but how do we know exactly if it works or not? It didn't cite any test cases. Did anybody try this?

[RiderOfGiraffes]

Thank you for the reference. I find the built-in "help" stuff in vi deeply frustrating, because I can't navigate until I learn its navigation commands, and it gives me no way to learn the navigation commands other than by navigating around inside the help system. I'll try again with your suggested reference(s).

With regards this last point though, I don't seem to have expressed myself clearly. My point is that the material covered in this "cheatsheet" page is very, very basic stuff, and if you use vi more than an hour a day then you'll no longer need the cheatsheet within 72 hours. There's little point in having a cheatsheet on the utter basics. Much better to have a cheatsheet on the next level, covering things you only use occasionally, and hence might not remember.

In short, I think we agree.

[10ren]

I find the vim help profoundly unhelpful (unless you already know about the command you need...) Googling (or searching on vim.org) fills this gap a bit.

The main navigating commands are: Ctrl-] (on a "hyperlinked" word) - and Ctrl-t to retrace your path.

[10ren]

Agree. In the same situation: Ctrl-x-Ctrl-f for filename completion.

I recently discovered that Ctrl-p and Ctrl-n will also work across files, if vim knows about them:

  vi file1 file2 file3

BTW: I learnt all the windowing commands at one time, but never really used them (and now forgotten). Instead, I use Ctrl-6 to swap between files, and I remapped Ctrl-p and -n to flick through files quickly:

  :map <C-n> <Esc>:n<CR>		" next file, with control-n
  :map <C-p> <Esc>:N<CR>		" prev file, with control-p

I also use alt-tab to switch between xterms (downside is you can't cut-n-paste with y and p between them).