Venturing into Vim: New Premium Video Series
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Venturing into Vim: New Premium Video Series

on Sep 13th 2010 with 56 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Topic: Vim Editor
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Availability: Premium Exclusive
Download Source Files

Some say it’s a decade-old piece of junk; others widely consider it to be the best code editor available. I’m on a quest to find out for myself. So, for four weeks (and four screencasts to track my progress), I will use nothing but Vim.

Along the way, if you choose to join me, I’ll share what I’ve learned, what frustrated me, and everything that falls in between. If you’ve been hoping to venture into Vim territory, there’s no better time to do so! Let’s do it together. Gain access to this screencast series, as well as many others by becoming a Premium member.

Week 1

In this first episode, we:

  • Discuss what Vim is / where it came from
  • Learn how to install it / MacVim for Mac users
  • Review basic keys
  • Discuss why a language is a better tool for code editing. What are the benefits
  • Create multiple windows with ease
  • Quickly connect to an FTP site to edit files on our server in a matter of seconds
  • And more…

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NETTUTS+ Screencasts and Bonus Tutorials

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I'm the editor of Nettuts+, and love making the process of building for the web as easy as possible. I'm incredibly passionate about modern software development, and am the author of Laravel Testing Decoded! If you want be friends, say hi on Twitter.  

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  • Rolf

    Very interesting! Wil follow youre adventure!

  • http://daniel-groves.co.uk Daniel Groves

    Finally, I get the satisfaction of logging in and enjoying the premium videos!

    • Jeremy

      How? I’m getting frustrated trying to. I remember them saying you could do that, but I’m not able to.

      I try logging in front this page, get told i’m redirecting to a secure location or something like that, refreshes, still not showing any different than being logged in.

      Then when I log in at tutsplus.com same deal, what am I missing?

      • Jeremy

        huh, I refreshed a few times, kept having the problem, then once I submitted the comment it refreshed and finally showed me a difference and now I can see they have the link to the mp4 file.

        A nice addition would be being able to see the video in a video player when logged in, like the normal quick tips. But I guess this is a step less than going over to the tutsplus site.

    • http://rileydavisonline.com Riley Davis

      I’m in the same boat. The page doesn’t change or confirm that I’ve logged in at all. The rest of the site is so easy to use, but I feel like I’m in a loop missing something obvious.

      • sirviejo

        Every time i logged in as premium user, the page is refreshed as if i am logged off. Cant see the premium content this is noooo good!

      • sirviejo

        ohh very odd, after i posted a comment now i see the page as logged in.

  • w1sh

    I do like the fact you’re letting us “follow along as you learn something”, but even though I’ve tried a few command-line/terminal apps, I can’t help but feel like the cursor/ui approach is faster.

    For instance, I can create a template folder with index.php, inc/, css/, css/style.css, js/, etc for however sparse or bloated (HTML5 Boilerplate) I want it to be, then copy/paste and create a starter template 100x faster than any text-driven IDE could ever do.

    Now… I’m not saying text-based things are useless. Zen-Coding is by far one of my favorite additions to a web-designer/developers arsenal, so… you know.. I have text-based friends.

    Just sayin’ I about puked all over the place watching you traverse in Vim. Since I don’t have a year or two to learn it thoroughly, I’ll remain one of the people who thinks it’s a 35 year old piece of junk.

    And again, love this approach to teaching. You should definitely take up Python/Django like this and help advance a whole generation of web-devs.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      You might be surprised how much you like it if you force yourself to use it for a couple days. A “language” for a code editor can provide you with far more power and flexibility than a GUI ever could.

      That’s why many of the best developers I’ve ever met use Vim.

      • w1sh

        Yeah, and I’ve even met great devs who use Aptana (Burak is a good example). I just don’t see having time to figure it all out. Maybe your series will convince me otherwise.

        As for now, I’m really excited about Komodo Edit 6.

    • Joe

      Once you a week or so with vim, you should start to realize how efficient it is. Same goes for the CLI. It’s so much faster if you know your way around. You do need to know your way around though or else it’s pretty annoying.

      Totally recommend learning these types of tools and dealing with the short amount of frustration you’ll have during the process. It’ll be great in the long run.

      • Joe

        Edit: Once you *spend* a week or so with vim…

    • Shane

      I would keep project templates in a source code repository. No copy and paste involved. You dont need and IDE for that.

  • http://shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker

    While I enjoy this approach to learning and follow along on most of your journeys, I’m kind of disapointed you’re wasting time (IMHO) on this. I’d much rather follow you through learning another web language or projected (or finish one of the many video casts you’ve started!)

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Hey Shane – I don’t have many other series going at the moment. JavaScript from Null will go on for another year. Other than that, the others are completed.

      • http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker

        Well, I WANT MORE JAVASCRIPT FROM NULL, dammit! :)

  • Corey

    You might want to change your password to your ftp since the program that picks up you keystroke picked up you password as well. Unless you’ve already realized and changed it. Thank you for taking us along on your journey. This seems to be a very powerful and customizable tool that I am looking forward to learning :).

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Hey Corey – Yeah, it’s just a dummy password that I set up for the screencast. Changed it right after posting. :)

  • Jay

    Darn, Vim is just great. I would love to watch this series, but alas, I cannot go Premium :(

  • Josh

    Just thought I’d drop this in. It’s a wiki for vim… http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Vim_Tips_Wiki

  • Kerry

    Nice Tutorial Jeffrey.

    I’ve used Vim on and off for a few years strictly as a text editor in Linux. I looking forward to following this series of tuts over the next few weeks to pick up a few more tricks

  • Ettiene

    Logged in a million times now, but still needing to log in??

  • http://kriwis.com kriwis

    Hey! what gives? is there a problem with the premium accounts? I keep getting redirected without being logged in… don´t know if anyone else has got the same problem?

  • http://omarello.com omarji

    Ok, I think I am going premium just for this :)

  • http://www.markdijkstra.eu Mark Dijkstra

    Never heard about vim…

  • http://andrewburgess.ca Andrew Burgess

    Looking forward to this series! I’ve been using Vim since about the beginning of the summer, and I haven’t looked back since! Jeffrey’s completely right: once you learn the commands, you’ll be much more productive.

    If you’re having a hard time remembering the key commands, realize that pretty much all of them are short for a full command name. Like Jeffrey said, sp > split, vsp for > vertical split. But Vim will often use a different vocabulary than most editors, so instead of saving a file, you write it; instead of opening a file, you edit it.

    My biggest complaint with Vim (besides the ugly icon :) ) is that TextExpander doesn’t work with it; if you find a solution to that, Jeffrey, let us know!

    • http://iamiivo.tumblr.com Iivo

      That’s weird ’cause my TextExpander automatically worked fine with Vim. :S

      I gotta say I think I just found my new favorite editor. After reading more and more about Vim, I can’t believe I’ve missed all this for so long.

      The only problem that I’m having is that I can’t get the Zen Coding to work. Since my keyboard is Finnish, the “Ctrl+y+,” won’t work. I tried looking at tips how to change the keycommand, but I wasn’t able / I didn’t understand how to change it. And since I’ve used zen coding in every project that I’ve done now days, it’s hard to think that I’m stuck right now. :(

      • Krosh

        Same Problem here, has anyone a solution?

      • Krosh

        Hehe, i have found the problem: The folder where you have to copy the .vim File must be /plugin and not /plugins – Little Change, big effect.

        :-)

        Great Tutorial!

  • http://webdesignscoop.com Mozzaey

    Is Vim still around? I am tempted to go premium for this tutorial.

  • http://www.ekar.ma Erhan Karadeniz

    haven’t watched the screencast yet, but I will sure do. might pick up some usefull tips.

    For those who are a little familiar with VI(m) this might be usefull.. it was for me.

    http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html

  • Artur

    Hello,
    Is this tutorial for vim in general or only about Macvim and it is for totally beginners?
    Best regards
    Artur

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      I use the MacVim editor in the screencast, but the keyboard shortcuts apply across the board.

  • manu

    nice adventure.
    I made several attempts to use vi more often but after some time I always got frustrated.
    here is another cheat sheet which maybe can help.

    http://www.superbly.ch/?p=12

  • http://www.pequenotux.blogspot.com Willian

    I can’t get a premium account but here is a good tutorial: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/vi-guide.xml
    :)

  • Allen Warren Jr

    Wow!

  • Fefo

    Don’t be afraid to try it… I’ve used *NIX systems my whole life and vi was one of the first editors I new. So flexible, so lightweight, so fast…
    Besides, as Jeffrey said, it comes as part of every UNIX flavoured OS, it’s free and pretty extensible.
    If you have access to a linux box, try using the command “vimtutor” from a shell (actually, when issuing that command you access a copy of the original file which is found in /usr/local/share/vim/vim72/tutor/tutor.vim). It’s a tutorial made by vim coders to teach you how to use it. Basically it’s a text file that you have to read while editing it.

  • Fefo

    On my OSX 10.6.4 vimtutor works just fine. Try it!

  • http://twitter.com/garbaczd David Garbacz

    I actually decided to sign up for a premium membership so I could follow along with you on this one Jeff. I’ve always kind of been afraid of Vim and I’m willing to try something new. I’m excited to see what else is in store :D

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Thanks, David! Week 2 will be available in about 3-4 days. I’ve learned a lot since week 1. :)

      • http://twitter.com/garbaczd David Garbacz

        Nice! I’ve just taken an old stylesheet I had laying around and have been toying with the keys and trying to get up to speed. I noticed in your last quick tip you were FLYING with Vim.

        Hope to be to that level in due time :P

  • George

    Hi! Thanks for a great tutorial…

    There are a lot of scripts(plugins) for vim, at the vim webpage, that can add functions to vim. snippets(like textmate, expand with tab), syntax coloring for some languages and frameworks like jquery and less css…
    zencoding.
    autocompletion built in. And lots more…

    Just wanted to add a link to a Derek Wyatts blog. He made tutorial videos about vim. They are really good and it goes from novice to advanced, and a few videos showcasing some plugins too…

    http://www.derekwyatt.org/vim/vim-tutorial-videos/

    Start with the vimtutor (in macVim just type :e /usr/share/vim/vim72/tutor/tutor, for other languages just add ‘.lang’ at the end, for example swedish: :e /usr/share/vim/vim72/tutor/tutor.sv ) inside of vim and then go through the videos and you´ll master vim in notime…

    George

  • http://ingo-fahrentholz.com ingo fahrentholz

    I’m interested if vim is able to work with CVS; SVN and GIT ? Anyone ones about ?

    of course what would be great to is if it’s possible to debug witgh VIM (Breakpoints etc.)

    If anyone ones about that i would preciate a response (:

    Greetz IF

  • http://ingo-fahrentholz.com ingo fahrentholz

    When Jeff woke my ambition with this video series to learn VIM, I have just today found a great site. Maybe even interesting for you jeff (:

    Greetings Ingo

    Link: http://www.derekwyatt.org/vim

  • http://www.mosaicmiamichurch.com kevin

    i like the strategy four consecutive posts. i will try to follow the vim series.

  • Andrew

    Just wow. Useless.

  • sb

    I’ve given up trying to view any premium content…am constantly bounced around – why can’t I just stay logged in so I can actually access content on the various tuts sites?

  • Monkeytail

    I’am on Windows (w/ VIM7.0) and dropped the zencoding.vim file into C:\Program Files\Vim\vimfiles\plugin\ folder, but i doesn’t work.

    After I hit ctr+y+, (in insert mode) nothing happens to the line of code.

    Where do I go wrong?

    • Christopher Sanders

      I am having the same trouble actually on my mac. I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

  • http://www.exposecreative.net Mischa Colley

    For a while now I have been throwing myself into the command line with Mac OS X Terminal and have been slowly getting more and more confident in what I am doing. I am especially loving the power this knowledge is giving me when interacting with my servers. Throwing Vim into the mix has suddenly opened up a whole new world of wonderful opportunities and I find that learning both things at the same time is making it easier. Vim is not nearly as scary as I thought it would be, although defiantly awkward at first. While getting used to navigating and editing files via the command line I have found it very useful to use Coda with an “FTP” pane open and a Terminal pain open. You can work locally or remotely via ftp and ssh and it allows you to dive right in to the command line while still having the more familiar gui to check and navigate your files.

    Thanks for sharing your learning experience Jeffrey, as always very clearly explained.

    Re: Monkeytail

    Since this video was recorded the Zencoding plugin has been updated. So don’t create a plugins folder, just unzip “zencoding-vim.zip” and place the three folders inside it into the .vim directory. The three folders should be “autoload”, “doc” & “plugin” as of script version 0.53.

    Cheers

    • Christopher Sanders

      Thanks so much for this! I am going to try this out now.

  • Christopher Sanders

    Thanks for this tutorial Mr. Way. It’s wonderful! I have already downloaded the others and will be watching them also.

  • http://www.oincwireless.com/phpbb/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=woodstains37582 New York furniture restoration

    Hello my friend! I wish to say that this article is awesome, nice written and include almost all vital infos. I’d like to see more posts like this.

  • http://www.mosaicmiamichurch.com kevin

    love the 3D animation…very cool

  • John Lilly

    anyone figured out how to open current buffer in gvim in firefox?

  • Albert Yu

    Very useful tutorials, thanks jeff