Vim Goodies

This chapter will briefly cover few of many other vim features.

Quickfix list

The quickfix list is a list that has entries of file, location(row, col) and text.
There are many ways to populate the quickfix list, personally I populate it with :help make and telescope.nvim which we will cover later.

It's mainly used to store search results and compilation errors.

Commands

:copen - open the quickfix list.
:cclose - close the quickfix list.
:cnext - jump to the next entry in the qf list.
:cprev - jump to the prev entry in the qf list.

I recommend to install vim-unimpaired that adds ]q and [q to jump to the next/prev entry.

Substitute Command

The s command is used for search & replace in the current buffer you are editing.
The syntax resembles the sed cli tool.

The command is very powerful, you can learn more about it in :help :substitute or just google it.

Few examples:

:s/ofir/gal/ - find the first occurrence of ofir in the current line and replace it with gal
:s/ofir/gal/g - find all occurrences of ofir in the current line and replace them with gal
:%s/ofir/gal/ - find the first occurrence of ofir in each line of the current buffer and replace them with gal
:%s/ofir/gal/g - same as above but for all occurrences

Recommended keymap to rename the word under the cursor

-- My <F2> is binded to lsp rename
map('n', '<leader><F2>', '*:%s///g<left><left>') -- Rename current word with <leader>F2
map('x', '<F2>', '"hy:%s/<C-r>h//g<left><left>') -- Rename selected text in visual

Plugins

With text-case.nvim you can replace text and preserve the casing of the text.

When executing :Subs/ofir gal/amit tamari on this text:

OfirGal
ofirGal

It results this text:

AmitTamari
amitTamari

Also it provides lua API to change case, I created these user commands to change casing fast.

local api = vim.api
local textcase = require('textcase')
textcase.setup {
}

api.nvim_create_user_command('UpperCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_upper_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('LowerCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_lower_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('SnakeCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_snake_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('ConstantCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_dash_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('DashCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_constant_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('DotCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_dot_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('CamelCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_camel_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('PascalCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_pascal_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('TitleCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_title_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('PathCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_path_case') end, {})
api.nvim_create_user_command('PhraseCase', function() textcase.current_word('to_phrase_case') end, {})

Global command

The g command is used to apply a "vim" command across the buffer by filtering lines with pattern.

For example:

:g/ofir/d - will delete all the lines with ofir

The command is very powerful, you can learn more about it in :help :global or just google search it.

Macros

You can record and replay macros (set of key presses) to apply similar changes fast.

To start recording press q{a-z}, you will see in the bottom left recording @{a-z} to stop recording press q again, this will save the macro to {a-z} so you can use it later.
To replay the macro press @{a-z}.

Record the macro once and use it multiple times on multiple lines.

Usage Example

I have a list of days of the week that I need to store inside a list, all the days need to be in lowercase.
I have a code with enum of days but I need to migrate it to python

enum Days {
	Sunday = 0,
	Monday = 1,
	Tuesday = 2,
	Wednesday = 3,
	Thursday = 4,
	Friday = 5,
	Saturday = 6,
};

Wanted result:

days = [
	'sunday',
	'monday',
	'tuesday',
	'wednesday',
	'thursday',
	'friday',
	'saturday',
]

First I'll grab all days from inside the enum to my python file, but I need to make it a list with only the day names.
I can record a macro that changes the casing of the first letter, deletes the number and adds ' to make the day string.

We are going to change the first day manually while recording the macro.

The macro: qa^guui'<Esc>ea'<Esc>ldt,jq.
Breakdown:

qa - start a macro recording on a
^ - go to the start of the line
guu - change the current char to lowercase
i'<Esc> - enter insert mode, add ' and escape from insert mode
e - go the the end of word
a'<Esc> - enter insert mode after the word, add ' and escape from insert mode
l - move right from the ' we just added
dt, - delete the content until , (the = <num>)
j - go down a line so we can repeat the macro
q finish recording the macro.

After we recorded the macro on top of the first day we have 6 days left, we can press 6@a and that will repeat the macro 6 times and will change all the days.

Plugins

You can edit macros after recording them with vim-buffest

Dot to repeat

You can press . to repeat what you just did.
You can think of it like a macro that holds only the last action you did.

Usage Example

apple banana orange

I want to change all the fruits to fruit, but I realized it after I already changed apple to fruit by using ciwfruit<Esc> and I don't want to record a macro again.

After I change it I can just go to the next word (preferably with w) and press . to change the current word to fruit.

You can do cool stuff with when combining :help gn

External Command

You can run external terminal commands from vim, for example: !ls

Folds

vim supports folds, personally I never found this feature necessary, I set it to never fold automatically, but you can read more about folds here and make sure to check out nvim-ufo.

opt.foldlevelstart = 99 -- no auto folding

Learn Neovim