centos vim: how to make it better? - vim

Hey I have a centos installation, but I found the vim within it is quite worse than the one in ubuntu. I don't know why. I have copied the configurations from ubuntu but the behavior is still not the same, the difference:
I can't use arrow keys in insert mode, when I press "UP", the 'A' will be inserted into the content, and vice versa for all the other arrow keys, what should I set to make arrow keys working right in insert mode? (In view mode it's ok).
I can't copy a line using 'yy' and then close it and then open another file and then 'p' paste to the opened file. Looks like no clipboard suppored across multiple files.
I can't use history feature(I can't go the the line number that I visited last time, the cursor will always go into the first line when I open the last opened file)
I appreciate the helps!

Try this:
in the ubuntu machine, open a file with vim
and do
:mksession ubuntu.vim
put the file ubuntu.vim in the second machine, where you would type the following:
vim -S ubuntu.vim
if you now have the same behavior you just need to check what you need to add in
your .vimrc from the file ubuntu.vim.
If you don't have the same behavior maybe you will have some errors while loading the file...

Related

nano editor is unable to write and read a file

I was working samba on raspberry pi using putty to connect. I configured the smb.conf file using nano as my text editor. Try to use vi editor but it doesn't allow me to put in space or create a new line.
After I restart samba. It creates smb.conf.save file. When I try to nano smb.conf(the original file), it shows nothing like a blank page(see below image). It also crushes since I cannot go back to the command line. I have to close and open it again.
When I try to use vi editor to view smb.conf. I am able to view the text.
Does anyone know what is the problem? How to fix it? Thank you.
Basically vim saves your buffer (unsaved edit) in a temporary file with .save extension so you can use this as backup in case something happens like unexpected system reboot
VIM is a bit different from other text editors. It has multiple modes insert mode (where you can edit text) and command mode (where you can use alphabet keys to do commands like go up using k and delete using dd etc. Once you open vim you are on command mode so you cannot edit your text until pressing I to jump to insert mode.
Check https://www.radford.edu/~mhtay/CPSC120/VIM_Editor_Commands.htm
My answer for your issue will be either to take a quick tutorial about vim then edit using vim or use nano to open .save file edit your file then when save delete the .save extension

Avoiding paste content to be executed in normal mode in Neovim/WSL/ConEmu

I've started using Neovim on Windows/WSL through ConEmu. It all works pretty amazingly except one pretty major flaw:
When I paste content into Neovim and forget to enter insert mode before, Neovim will register the input as keyboard strokes and execute them as commands. Needlessly to say, this can get pretty ugly, pretty fast.
A contrived example for clarity: I need to copy some text from my browser. The text in question is "sp" (yes, this is completely stupid, but bear with me). As I paste this into ConEmu (CTRL-V), the terminal transfers the input to Neovim that parses it as commands because it's in normal mode. In this example Neovim will replace whatever character is at the cursor at the time with p.
Vim for Windows has this solved and will paste the content without changing mode (how does a pure Linux environment handle this?). The problem with that solution is that it is dependent on the Windows file system which is a lot harder to tweak/maintain compared to apt-get/Ubuntu/WSL as well other annoyances.
So, initially I thought I'd try to make Neovim detect if the input was directly from the keyboard and not any other source, if it was, switch to insert mode and handle it from there. But I'm frankly not sure if this is even possible (especially though WSL). I also tried to add a shortcut that makes Neovim enter insert mode on CTRL-V in the hopes that is would trigger first and then correctly paste the content.
Maybe I need another terminal than ConEmu?
Anyway, I'm out of ideas, hope you guys can help.
ConEmu shall not detect any "internal" modes of the application you run in the terminal. Actually, when you "paste" something, terminal does almost the same thing if you press same keys manually.
Well, except one major difference: ConEmu uses "bracketed paste mode", so the console application may determine if user paste something or press keys manually.
So, it's the question to Neovim how to process/configure bracketed paste mode inside it.
In ConEmu settings, Keys & Marco -> Paste
There is an option:
Multi-line paste: avoid unexpected command execution by < Enter >
keypress
That's what you need.

How to select all text in vim normal mode?

Is there "keyboard-only" way to select an entire vim document in a way that is equivalent to a left-click and drag with a mouse in normal mode? Please do not confuse this with selecting all text in visual mode (ggVG). I want to be able to follow this up with a right-click paste into notepad++ (ggVG/ggVGy followed by a right-click paste in notepad++ does not copy the document). Thanks
Again, the "ggVG" commands are not working, nor are the "+y" commands (which I should have mentioned in my original post). Perhaps it is worth noting that I am working on a Windows local machine (where I have notepad++ open) and am generating the vim file on a linux virtual machine (slurm cluster). Under these working conditions, if I left-click drag over the vim doc and right-click paste in notepad++, the selected text copies over. However, the process is cumbersome for large files, hence my inquiry. Thanks again.
You should have mentioned that, of course, as it is not a meaningless detail at all.
Manual selection in a terminal can only select the text currently displayed in the viewport, which is obviously cumbersome for larger files. The only practical way to copy on the remote machine and paste on the local machine (and vice-versa) is to enable X-forwarding and build Vim on the remote machine against X libraries. This will give you what you want: a shared clipboard.
You won't be able to reach your goal in a practical way if you can't or don't want to install the necessary stuff on the remote machine.
As a lightweight alternative, you could simply scp the remote file to your local machine.
Just use (esc) :%y+. This will copy the entire document to your clipboard. Then you can go to notepad++, or whatever else you want to use, and paste it with a right click.
Explanation:
%: Tells vim the next command will be applied to all lines.
y: to all 'yank' lines
+: Copies all lines to clipboard, You can also use Ctrl + C instead. Note: + is sometimes bound as *. And sometimes both are equivalent.
Or you can also use the slightly longer way: ggVG+.
If you really want to be fancy you can remap Ctrl + A to ggVG or %y by adding this line to your .vimrc:
map <C-a> <esc>ggVG<CR>
Try to use Xshell remote login software. in there is a option called "To Text Editor".
Just open the file using "vi filename.c" it will displayed on the screen after that just made a left click on the work area and choose "To Text Editor--->all" . then these all text moved to a notepad file then u can simply copy and paste in notepad++.

How to copy all the text from vim editor using vim command line?

I want to select all the text from the vim editor, I tried the command :%y+ but getting error E850: Invalid register name. I get this command from this link. Please help me how to copy all the text from file which is open in vim. They are using yank, what is meaning of it..
I had a similar problem. Don't know why you got so many down votes.
The problem is that you haven't installed vim-gnome which takes about 24 MB and adds a feature to the inbuilt vim.
sudo apt-get install vim-gnome
then your command will work. :%y+ This command will copy all the text in system's clipboard.
TLDR: If you want to copy text in Vim to the system clipboard type ggVG"*y. Explanation below...
Vim runs in the terminal and, depending upon how you are using it and which type of Vim you are running, it's not really designed for you to select text with a mouse and copy and paste in the traditional way.
If you want to select all of the text using Vim then use ggVGy (note the uppercase VG in the middle). This command moves the cursor to the top of the file, enters visual mode, moves to the bottom of the file (thus, selecting all of the text) and then yanks (copies) it. You can then use p to put (paste) this code but only inside of Vim.
If you want to copy to the clipboard to use somewhere outside of Vim then try this:
First, select everything using the commands outlined above but without the final y: (ggVG). Then press "*y. This should now copy it to your operating system's clipboard and you can just paste (Ctrl/Cmd+v) anywhere you want outside of Vim. This can vary depending on what settings you have for Vim but it should work.
A brief explanation of the commands used. gg goes to the top of the file. V enters visual mode by lines. G goes to the end of the file. y yanks (copies) the text but not to the clipboard. p puts (pastes) the text.
The more advanced (i.e. cool) stuff:
" allows you to access registers. For example "a provides access to register a.
The * is the system clipboard so "* provides access to the system keyboard. Therefore, "*y yanks into the system clipboard.
While there's a great explanation of how to exploit the system clipboard in vim, it sounds like you're just having trouble getting your vim to access the clipboard in the first place. Try installing vim-gnome, it gives you the packages you need to get to the system clipboard.
For some reason, "* didn't work for me, but the exact same command with the "+ register did.
To select the whole file you can jump to the beginning, start visual mode, jump to the end:
ggVG
This question is a few years old now, but I had this same problem on Linux Mint 18. I found using xclip worked for me. You can map the command vmap <F7> :!xclip -sel c<CR><CR> in your .vimrc to have your current selection in visual mode copied to the system clipboard.
Here is a thread containing the above (and other) solutions.
You can use
Vggy/vggy or,
VGy/VGy
To visually select any number of text and then copy it, in your case it is gg / G as you want all text on the file,
gg is to copy while your cursor is at bottom of the file, gg for go to top
G is to copy while your cursor is at top of the file
Or even you can always use
Vk(as number of time)y to copy the selected lines of text.

How do I cancel a paste operation in Vim?

I had rather a lot of text on my clipboard whenever I accidentally right clicked inside Putty (with Vim open), and Vim has initiated a paste operation which has been going for around ten minutes now.
I don't want to lose my unsaved work, is there a way to instruct Vim to stop pasting text?
If you're in normal mode, Ctrl-C aborts the current command in progress. Then press u to undo anything that changed before you stopped it.
Depending os your vim configuration, there's chances that you have a swap file (backup) in .nameOfTheOpenedFile.swp (substitute nameOfTheOpenedFile with the name for your file).
To recover the file :
vim -r .nameOfTheOpenedFile.swp
I know this is really old but the top answer is not right and I was clearly having a similar issue to OP. (accidentally pasted like a million lines of json into vim)
Keep in mind this may not allow you to save your work (but you can probably salvage something from the .swp file)
All you need to do is open a new terminal window and enter pkill vim into the command line.

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