In most text editors, I can select text by clicking and dragging with my mouse, and then using Ctrl-C to copy that text, or Backspace to delete it.
However, since vim runs in the console, if I highlight some text with the mouse, my vim commands don't affect what I have selected.
What is the equivalent way to select text in vim?
In vim, text is selected by entering Visual mode. This can be done in multiple ways.
v (lower case v) begins regular Visual mode, and works similar to selecting text with a mouse. Use h and l to expand the selection left and right to include more words, and use j and k to expand the selection to the lines below and above.
V (upper case v) begins linewise visual mode. This selects entire lines of text at a time. Use j and k to expand the selection up and down.
Ctrl+v(lower case v) enters block visual mode. This selects text in a block format, allowing you to select parts of multiple lines without including the entire line. Use hjkl as usual.
As #FDinoff suggested, if your terminal emulator supports it, you can even specify visual selections with the mouse by enabling mouse input with :set mouse=a.
Once you have selected the text you want, you can use all sorts of commands on them. Some of the more useful ones are:
Escape visual mode
delete the text
yank (copy) the text
paste your clipboard onto the text, replacing it
change the text, which deletes it and sets your cursor for typing
replace the text with the next character you type
yq/p search for the text elsewhere in your document
You can learn more about Visual mode by typing :help v while inside vim.
Hightlight yanked text
First of all I would like to recommend highlight yanked text:
https://github.com/machakann/vim-highlightedyank (vim and neovim)
This is useful because it will give you a visual hint of what you have just copied.
For neovim:
augroup highlight_yank
autocmd!
au TextYankPost * silent! lua vim.highlight.on_yank({higroup="IncSearch", timeout=700})
augroup END
The vim philosophy goes way beond selecting, copying etc.
Start spending more time reading about vim/neovim and you will not going back to any other editor.
Nice to meet you dear "text-objects"
Read more about them here
Copy a whole paragraph to the clipboard:
"+yip
"+ .................... clipboard register
y ..................... copy
ip .................... inner paragraph
Copy the whole file to the clipboard
:%y+
Test some vim commands from the clipboard
:#+
The above command allows you to run functions and vim commands even if did not pasted them into your vimrc, there are some exceptions but in general it will work.
You can define your own text-objects
" vim line text-objects
xnoremap al :<C-u>norm! 0v$<cr>
xnoremap il :<C-u>norm! _vg_<cr>
onoremap al :norm! val<cr>
onoremap il :norm! vil<cr>
So you can use vil or dil
Sometimes you don't need to select to copy
If you wan to copy the second line to the end of the file you can do:
:2t$
If you want to move lines 4-7 to the beggining of the file you can do:
:4,7m0
copy from mark a to mark b:
ma .................. mark current line as mark a
Jump to a second place in your file and then
mb .................. mark current line as mark b
finally:
:'a,'by+
from mark a to mark b copy to the clipboard
Diving into advanced vim:
What is your most productive shortcut with Vim?
Related
I usually visual select a block and copy/cut it somewhere else, then I found myself always formatting the pasted text, so is there a way to quickly visually select the text again.
Every command that modified the buffer (and yanks) will set the '[ and '] marks around the changed area. So you can reformat your pasted block via:
`[v`]=
Some people go so far as to use the following mapping to reselect last modified chunk of text:
nnoremap <expr> gV '`[' . getregtype()[0] . '`]'
With this mapping you can just do gV= and format your just pasted text.
However if you have the unimpaired.vim plugin and you are pasting linewise you can use the =p command it provides. This will paste and then reformat the text in one go. It also provides some other alternative paste commands >p for example will paste one indent level deeper.
For visual mode, gv is the standard way to reselect the previous area.
If you want to toggle between start and end positions of the area, just press o.
As other answers have mentionned it, you can apply standard = command on this reselected area.
It works well after a p or P paste.
The advantage is that you do not need any custom mapping.
The way I use is straightforward. The cursor is at the beginning of the pasted text after pasting. The press V to switch to visual selection, the press '] to go the end of the pasted.
They are 3 key presses. If it is too long then you can do mapping for p
map p pV'[
map P PV'[
I'm trying to make the switch to VIM, but there's one feature I'm really lacking and that's the highlight copy - pasting. Additionally, I am really lost with the "p" and "y" commands, I can't seem to copy or paste anything properly. I've set "clipboard=unnamedplus" to use the OS clipboard. Can you give me some pointers, or possibly a solution to my problems. It'd be nice if I could Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V things and be able to copy highlighted text to my clipboard and paste from my clipboard.
Thanks in advance.
By default, Vim yanks text and stores it in the " register; after yanking, you can see it by typing the :reg command.
However, you can control which register you want to yank or paste. For example, "aY yanks/copies the current line into register a, "cp puts/pastes the content from register c.
In Vim you have more than one "clipboard", you can "copy" many things in different "clipboards" and choose the right one to paste from. It is Vim's great advantage, isn't it?
If you want to use ctrl-c to copy selected text to system clipboard, you could:
"easier copy/paste to/from clipboard
vnoremap <C-C> "+y
nnoremap <Leader>p "+P
But I wouldn't use C-V to paste, as it is already assigned to the blockwise selection feature.
To correctly paste from outside of terminal (possibly multiple indented lines of code) into Vim, add this to your ~/.vimrc:
set pastetoggle=<F2>
Then press F2, go to insert mode (you should see -- INSERT (paste) --) and Ctrl+shift+v to paste. Then again F2 to quit insert mode.
When even i try to copy paste this text in vim it put half of it in the command line and half in text editor main window
This is the text
sub(/;;/," ",$0)
How can i copy paste that
When you paste in console Vim (not GVIM), Vim cannot detect whether what you've pasted is typed by you or an actual paste. Therefore, any (insert mode) mappings will apply. You probably have a mapping (maybe ;;?) that leaves insert mode, and that is triggered during the paste, wreaking havoc.
There are two ways to prevent that:
Either paste in normal mode via "*p (active selection) or "+p (system clipboard), provided that Vim is able to interact with them.
Or, set the 'pastetoggle' option, e.g.
:set pastetoggle=<F2>
and then press F2 (in insert mode) before pasting (note how the mode changes to -- INSERT (paste) --, and again after it. This way, you explicitly tell Vim "the next characters aren't typed by me, treat them literally".
If this manual management is too much of a hassle for you, you can alternatively use graphical GVIM.
I'm not sure which way you're copying and pasting (i.e. from an Xorg window (like gnome-terminal) to vim or vice-versa). Let's assume you want to copy and paste from an Xorg window into your vim window. There are a few ways to do it:
Select the text to copy using the mouse, put vim into insert mode, then press the middle mouse button.
If you are using vim with X support in a console (often started by typeing vimx) then you can select the text to copy using the mouse, then in the vimx window press "*p. The text selected by the mouse is placed in the * register.
If you are using vim with X support in a console (started by typing vimx) then you can select the text to copy using the mouse, right click the mouse, choose menu item Copy and then in the vimx window hit "+p to paste. In this case, because you used the right click menu item to copy, the text was placed in the in the + register.
Items 2 and 3 above also work when using gvim.
What you can do is make sure you're in insert mode and copy the code snippet with ctrl+v on the keyboard and then left click to the vim window to put it back in focus, then tap right click once and your text should paste in. I just tested this to make sure and it worked on CentOS 6.3 at least.
In vim you have modes, to enter text you have to be in insert mode. Press i (before current char) or a (after current char) before pasting your text.
If you don't go into insert mode, the first char s will erase the current char and enter insert mode putting ub(/;;/," ",$0) on your file.
Press ESC to leave the insert mode.
Also if you happen to have a shared clipboard with your GUI pressing p will paste.
To have a shared clipboard on OSX insert set clipboard=unnamed in your ~/.vimrc file.
Often times when I paste into vim I get cascading indents that are quite frustrating to fix. The result will look something like this
This is line one
This is line two
This is line three
This is line four
I'd like to know if there is a way that I could tell vim to align lines two through four with line one. If line one text is starting at cursor position 6 is there a way to say "make the next ten lines also start at position 6?"
To correct this cascading indentation, you can re-indent a block using =. Select a visual block and type = or supply a motion: =4j to re-indent the next 4 lines.
You might avoid the cascading indentations by setting paste before pasting: :set paste. After the paste :set nopaste.
You can use :set paste to avoid this when pasting in text. And you can set the indent level for a range with left.
:<range>left3
E.g.
.,+4left3
Will set the indent of the next 4 lines to 3.
Note: Range can be defined in visual mode, just select some lines with S-v and then press :left4
Before pasting, do :set paste, after pasting, do :set nopaste.
Or use Vim's built-in paste commands with the clipboard register:
"+p (paste after the cursor or below the line)
"+P (paste before the cursor or above the line)
See :help 'paste' and :help registers.
If I have something selected in Vim in visual mode, how can I duplicate that selection and place it below or above the selection?
Press y to yank what you've got selected visually, then p to paste below the cursor or P to paste above it.
And since you asked about pasting below the selection block, I'll copy what michael said below: After you y to yank, use '> to move it to after the selection block, and then p to paste.
Since I do this a lot (select a block, yank, go to end of last visual selection, paste) I set up a visual block shortcut under CTRL+P (prior to this, CTRL+p seems to be the same as j in a visual block).
vmap <C-p> y'>p
Now it's just making a visual selection and pressing CTRL+p.
In addition to the V...yp combo you might want to know about some jumps '< and '> to get to the last character of the previous visual mode text. Specifically, if you want to paste below you'd go V...y'>p. If it's a long multiline it may be handy.
It's one of those jumps you may find handy if you're doing this a lot.
Use y to yank (copy) the selection into a buffer.
Use p to paste the selection where you want it to be.
You have two options:
yy which copies the current line, then p to paste.
Make a selection, with v for example, then copy with y and paste with p.
Do you want to copy/paste the whole line? If so, get out of visual mode, then use yy to yank the whole line, then p to paste.