Multi-modal Editing

Multi-modal editing has several states optomised for interacting with text

• normal - manipulating and navigating existing text (default state)
• insert - writing new text
• visual - selecting blocks of text

Normal mode to insert mode:

• i insert before the cursor
• a append after the curor
• o insert on new line after current line
• O insert a new line previous to current line

v to enter visual select, using navigation and/or motions to select a range.

Esc to leave insert or visual mode and return to normal mode.

Command language

Learn to speak modal editing commands as sentences to effectively learn Multi-modal editing

Verbs start the sentence and are the action to perform

• c change
• d delete
• f find character forward
• g go
• s substitute
• v visual select
• y yank (copy)

Modifiers (motions) follow verbs and define where the cursor moves to.

• ' a mark location
• { } beginning/end of paragraph
• a around
• f find forward (includes character)
• i inside
• S surround (nvim-surround)
• t till (up until)

Text objects provide scope for verbs and modifiers

• b block/parentheses
• p paragraph
• s sentence
• t tag, e.g. html/xml tag
• w word
• W word delimited by only space

Examples of speaking Evil

Practice speaking evil with these examples

Keybinding	Description
c i s	change inside current sentence (change the whole sentence)
c i "	change inside double quotes
c f )	change from cursor to next ) character
c s ' "	change by the surrounding single quotes with double quotes
c t X	change till the character X (not including X)
c /foo	change until the first search result of ‘foo’
d d	delete current line
d i w	delete inside the current word (delete word)
v t SPC	visual select till the next Space character
v s ]	visually select and surround with [] without spaces
v s [	as above with [ ] with spaces between parens and content
g v	go to last visual selection (select last visual selection)
v a p	visually select around current paragraph
SPC v s "	visually select current word and surround with ""
v i w s "	visually select, insert around current word, and surround with quotes
y y	yank (copy) current line
y w	yank (copy) current word
y @ a	yank (copy) to mark a (m a creates a mark called a)

Evil Reference and Tips

Evil quick reference guide Evil tips for developers Speaking Vim

Selecting text

vi) selects all the text within (), e.g. (http://oldwebsite.doh)

Surround

viw selects the current word, using j/k to modify the selection where required. o toggles which end of the selection is expanded/shrunk

s substitutes the selection, type the characters to surround the selection.

p to paste the original text

nvim-surround

nvim-surround provides enhancments over the neovim surround command.

nvim-surround included in Practicalli AstroNvim Config

Visual Mode

viw to select the current word (visual in word)

S on a visual selection to surround with next that character, e.g. S) to surround with parens.

Closing paren surrounds without spaces

), ], } surrounds the selected text without spaces between the text and the open and closing parens.

(, [, { surrounds the selected text with a space between the text and the open and closing parens.

Normal mode

cs inside an existing pair of characters to change them to another pair of surrounding characters, e.g. cs(} to change (text) to {text}

ds inside a pair of surrounding characters to delete them, e.g. ds( to change (text) to text

ys you surround followed by motion and character, e.g. ysw) surrounds word with (parens)

yS to surround current line

ySS to surround current line, placing characters on new lines, e.g. ySS{ will change "Olical/conjure" to:

{
    "Olical/conjure"
}

The three "core" operations of add/delete/change can be done with the keymaps ys{motion}{char}, ds{char}, and cs{target}{replacement}, respectively. For the following examples, * will denote the cursor position:

Old text                    Command         New text
----------------------------------------------------
surr*ound_words             ysiw)           (surround_words)
*make strings               ys$"            "make strings"
[delete ar*ound me!]        ds]             delete around me!
remove <b>HTML t*ags</b>    dst             remove HTML tags
'change quot*es'            cs'"            "change quotes"
<b>or tag* types</b>        csth1<CR>       <h1>or tag types</h1>
delete(functi*on calls)     dsf             function calls

Neovim help provides details on using nvim-surround

:help nvim-surround.usage

Web Links

g x on a URL to open in the default browser

Markdown

s in visual mode substitues the selection with the next character typed

v to create visual selection, s to substitute the current selection, **** to create a bold style, P with the cursor on the second * pastes the text that was visually selected.

Text style

ysiw* surrounds current word with * to create italic text, . repeats to make bold text style.

ds* removes * from current word.

nvim-surround

nvim-surround plugin assists with adding style characters around text, e.g adding links, italic or bold text, etc.

S on a visual selection will surround the text with the next character. . repeat not supported.

Create a link

v and motion keys to select text, S [ to surround text with [] creating the text of a link anchor. Use S ( to surround the URL of the link.

Practicalli Spacemacs - Evil reference