LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around

• Chapter 3: Getting Around - LazyVim for Ambitious Developers

  • 3.1. Seeking Text (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/01 Seeking Text)

    • LazyVim ships with a plugin called nvim/Plugin/flash.nvim, which was created by the Person/Folke Lemaitre and integrates very nicely with it.
      
      This plugin provides a code navigation mode that has been available in various vim plugins for many years, and has historically been quite controversial. A lot of long-time vim users think it breaks the vim paradigm. I won't go into the details as to why, but I will acknowledge that this was true in older iterations of the paradigm but is somewhat less true in modern versions such as nvim/Plugin/flash.nvim.
      

    • To invoke flash, press the s key in Normal mode. My mnemonic for s for "seek", although I've also heard it referred to as "sneak" or "search" mode. Searching in LazyVim is a different behaviour (it doesn't care if the text is currently visible or not), and "sneaking" sounds a little too dishonest, so I use "Seek".
      
      The first thing to notice when you press s is that the text fades to a uniform colour and there's a little lightning symbol in the status bar indicating that Flash mode is active:
      
      
      
      Figure 11. Flash Mode Active
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/01 Seeking Text/Invoke Flash Seek Mode

        • What Keyshort invokes nvim/Plugin/flash.nvim Seek mode in Normal mode? card

          • s — type contiguous target characters, then press the green label key beside the match to jump

    • If you have multiple files open in split windows (which we'll discuss in Chapter 9), Seek mode can be used to move your cursor anywhere on the screen, not just in the currently active split.
      

    • Now, all instances of st in the file are highlighted in blue, and since there aren't as many st as s, all of those instances have a label beside them. The text I want to move to is labelled with a p, so I press p and my cursor is moved to the s character I wanted to change
      

      • My Note ok, so you enter contiguous characters, then the item highlighted in green and inserted after is the jump key

    • For me this happens most often when I want to edit the end of a line. If I type sn because I want to edit a line that has n as the last character, but there are a bunch of n characters closer to my cursor than the one I want to move to, flash may not label the n I want to move to, and it won't accept a carriage return as a "next character" input.
      
      For this reason, I don't seek near ends of lines. Instead, I'll seek to a word somewhere in the middle of the same line and then use A which, as you may recall, will put me in Insert mode at the end of the line. Alternatively, if I don't want to enter Insert mode, I will use the $ symbol (Shift+4), which is the Normal mode command for "Move cursor to end of current line".
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/01 Seeking Text/End of Line Instead of Seek

        • 1. What Keyshort puts the cursor in Insert mode at the end of the current line, and 2. what Keyshort moves to end of line without entering Insert? card

          • 1. A — Append at end of line (Enter Insert)
          • 2. $ (Shift+4) — Normal-mode end-of-line motion when Seek won't label the target near a line end

    • LazyVim ships with a plugin called nvim/Plugin/flash.nvim, which was created by the Person/Folke Lemaitre and integrates very nicely with it.
      

    • To invoke flash, press the s key in Normal mode. My mnemonic for s for "seek", although I've also heard it referred to as "sneak" or "search" mode. Searching in LazyVim is a different behaviour (it doesn't care if the text is currently visible or not), and "sneaking" sounds a little too dishonest, so I use "Seek".
      

  • 3.2. Scrolling the Screen (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/02 Scrolling the Screen)

    • The scrolling keys I use the most are definitely Control-d and Control-u, where the mnemonics are down and up. They scroll the window by half a screen's worth of text. The cursor stays in the same spot relative to the window, which means that it is moved up or down by half a screen's worth of text relative to the document.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/02 Scrolling the Screen/Half Page Scroll Keyshorts

        • 1. What Keyshort scrolls the window down half a screen, and 2. what Keyshort scrolls up half a screen? card

          • 1. <C-d> — down; cursor stays in the same spot relative to the window
          • 2. <C-u> — up; same relative cursor position as half-page down

    • If you need to move even further, you can use the Control-f and Control-b keybindings (forward and backward), which scroll by a full page of text. I don't like these ones because I never quite know where the cursor is going to end up and I become disoriented. But it can be handy if you need to scroll something into view quickly to use Seek mode on it. Unlike Control-d and Control-u, Control-f and Control-b can be prefixed with a count, so you can type 5<Control-f> if you need to scroll ahead by 5 pages.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/02 Scrolling the Screen/Full Page Scroll Keyshorts

        • 1. What Keyshort scrolls forward a full page, and 2. what Keyshort scrolls backward a full page? card

          • 1. <C-f> — forward one screen; accepts a count (e.g. 5<C-f> for five pages)
          • 2. <C-b> — backward one screen; also count-prefixable unlike half-page scroll in the book's emphasis

    • To scroll the window by a single line, use Control-y and Control-e. I have no idea why these keybindings were chosen. There is no mnemonic. I easily forget them, and so I never use them. These keybindings accept a count, so if you can remember them, they are useful for subtle repositioning of the text. The main advantage of these keybindings is that they don't move the cursor unless it would scroll off the screen, so if you are working on a line and need more visibility but don't want to move the cursor, you could use Control-y and Control-e to do it.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/02 Scrolling the Screen/Single Line Scroll Keyshorts

        • 1. What Keyshort scrolls the window down one line, and 2. what Keyshort scrolls up one line? card

          • 1. <C-e> — scrolls the window down one line (cursor moves only if it would scroll off screen)
          • 2. <C-y> — scrolls the window up one line; same cursor-stays-put advantage for subtle repositioning

    • 3.2.1. Z Mode

      • The z menu mode is an eclectic mix of cursor positioning, code folding, and random commands. You can see a list by pressing the z key while in Normal mode:
        
        
        
        z menu dark
        

        • My Note I wish things a way to pin the favorites to the top of the menu

      • The relative cursor keybindings I use exclusively are zt, zb, and zz. These move the line that the cursor is currently on to the top, bottom, or middle of the screen, respectively, where middle is represented by the easy-to-type double letter. When moving to the top or bottom it will leave a few lines of context above or below the cursor.
        

        • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/02 Scrolling the Screen/Z Mode Line Position Keyshorts

          • 1. What Keyshort moves the cursor line to the top of the screen, 2. what moves it to the bottom, and 3. what moves it to the middle? card

            • 1. zt — top of screen (leaves a few lines of context above)
            • 2. zb — bottom of screen (context below)
            • 3. zz — middle of screen (double letter for easy typing)

      • You can find other scrolling keybindings in the nvim documentation by typing :help scrolling, but the ones I just mentioned will probably more than cover your needs as you learn far more nuanced methods of navigating code.
        

  • 3.4. Counting (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/03 Counting)

    • So, for example, to move the cursor up 15 lines, you would enter Normal mode and hit the keys 15k. To move it five characters to the right, use 5l.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/03 Counting/Count Prefix Movement

        • 1. What Keyshort sequence moves the cursor up 15 lines in Normal mode, and 2. what moves it five characters to the right? card

          • 1. 15k — count prefix before k repeats the up-line motion 15 times
          • 2. 5l — count prefix before l moves five characters right on the same line

    • Open the file ~/.config/nvim/lua/config/options.lua, which should have been created for you by LazyVim but currently won't have anything in it other than a comment describing what it is for.
      
      You can use the Space mode command <Space>fc to quickly find files in the LazyVim configuration directory. This will pop up one of the file pickers that we'll discuss in detail in the next chapter. Type options and press <Enter> to open the
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/03 Counting/Find LazyVim Config File

        • What Keyshort opens the file picker scoped to the LazyVim configuration directory (e.g. to reach options.lua)? card

          • <leader>fc — find config files under ~/.config/nvim; see LazyVim/Keyshort/Search

    • Personally, I find line numbers to not be very useful and I don't like wasting valuable screen width on displaying those characters.
      

  • 3.5. Find Mode (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/04 Find Mode)

    • To enter Find mode, press the f key. Like Seek mode, a portion of your screen will dim, indicating that you should type another character. After you do so, all instances of that character after the cursor will be highlighted. For example, fs will highlight all instances of the letter s after the current cursor position.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/04 Find Mode/Find Forward and Backward

        • 1. What Keyshort enters Find mode forward on the current line, and 2. what Keyshort finds backward? card

          • 1. f then a character — highlights matches after the cursor (e.g. fs for letter s)
          • 2. F (shifted) — same motion backward; also accepts a count prefix

    • If you miscounted or misguessed and jump too far, don't worry! You can take advantage of the fact that (Shifted) F means "find backwards", and can also be counted. So if you need to move to the 15th highlighted s, it's totally fine to guess 18f, realize you've gone three too far, and use 3F to jump back to the previous character.
      

    • Instead, we need to use counts to jump to later instances of the character. If I want to jump ahead to the third highlighted s, I type 3f and my cursor will move there. However, if you want to jump to a much later s, you probably don't want to individually count how many s keys there are. Luckily, after you use a count, LazyVim leaves you in Find mode, so you can just guess how many s characters there are, and then once you are closer, repeat with a new count. If you only want to jump ahead by one s character, you don't need to enter a count, just press f by itself and you'll move ahead.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/04 Find Mode/Find Mode With Count

        • 1. How do you jump to the third highlighted s after fs, and 2. after overshooting with 18f, how do you step back three matches? card

          • 1. 3f — count before f jumps to the Nth match; Find mode stays active for another guess
          • 2. 3F — backward count corrects an overshoot (e.g. three too far after 18f)

    • You might think that To mode is kind of redundant because you could fairly easily use Find mode followed by a single h to move the cursor left. But "To" mode is extremely useful when you are combining it with operations to edit the text, which we will discuss later. As a taste, if you use the command d2ts, it will delete all text between the cursor and the second s it encounters, but leave that s alone. This is much easier than the d2fsis<Escape> that would be required if you used a find command and then had to enter Insert mode to add the s back.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/04 Find Mode/To Mode for Operations

        • 1. What does t do differently from f in Find/To mode, and 2. what does d2ts delete? card

          • 1. t lands before the target character — easier combined with change/delete operators than f on the char itself
          • 2. d2ts — deletes from cursor up to (but not including) the second s ahead on the line

  • 3.6. Moving by Words (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/05 Moving by Words)

    • Instead, you can just enter Normal mode and press the w key to move to the beginning of the next word. If you instead want to move to the end of the current word, use the e key. If you are already at the end of the current word, e will go to the end of the next word.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/05 Moving by Words/Web Words Forward

        • 1. What Keyshort moves to the beginning of the next word, and 2. what moves to the end of the current (or next) word? card

          • 1. w — start of the next word (count repeats for farther jumps)
          • 2. e — end of the current word, or end of the next word if already at the current word's end

    • Use the b key if you want to move backwards instead. This will move you to the beginning of the current word, or if you are already at the beginning of the word, it will move to the beginning of the previous word. As before, use a count to move to the beginning of even more words.
      

    • Surprisingly, it takes a bit more work to move to the end of the previous word, as you need to press two keys: g followed by e. The mnemonic for this is "go to end of previous word". In practice, you'll find that you hardly ever need this functionality for some reason, and the honest truth is I usually use be (b to move to beginning of previous word, then e to go to end of that word) to move to the end of the previous word. If you do use ge, however, it can be combined with a count as well. You'll need to type something like 4ge, depending on the count. The command g4e wouldn't do anything useful.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/05 Moving by Words/Web Words Backward

        • 1. What Keyshort moves backward to word beginnings, and 2. what Keyshort pair moves to the end of the previous word? card

          • 1. b — beginning of the current word, or the previous word if already at the beginning (countable)
          • 2. ge — go to end of the previous word (g then e; not g4e)

    • Collectively, you may occasionally hear the w, e, and b commands referred as the "web" words. It just means "moving by words". These are probably the most common movements you will use, more than individual cursor positions, simply because most editing actions tend to involve changing or deleting a word or sequence of words.
      

  • 3.7. Moving by Words, Only BIGGER (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/06 Moving by Words Only BIGGER)

    • The "shifted" form of the web words also move by words, but the definition of "word" is subtly different. Specifically, a capital W will move to just after the next whitespace character, where a lowercase w will use other forms of punctuation to delimit a word. Consider a method call on an object that looks something like this in many languages:
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/06 Moving by Words Only BIGGER/W vs w Word Boundaries

        • 1. What Keyshort stops at punctuation-delimited words on myObj.methodName('foo'), and 2. what Keyshort jumps by whitespace-delimited words instead? card

          • 1. w — treats punctuation as word boundaries (many stops across methodName('foo', …))
          • 2. W — moves to just after the next whitespace character (fewer, bigger stops on the same line)

    • As a visualization, here are all the stops on that line of code when you use w compared to when you use W:
      

    • Listing 10. Behaviour of w and W
      

      • myObj.methodName('foo', 'bar', 'baz')
        -----ww---------w-w--w--ww--w--ww--w---->
        ------------------------W------W-------->

    • The B, E, and gE motions behave similarly, moving in the appropriate direction by whitespace-delimited words instead of punctuation ones.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/06 Moving by Words Only BIGGER/BIG Word Backward and End

        • 1. What Keyshort is the shifted form of b for BIG words, 2. what is the shifted form of e, and 3. what is the shifted form of ge? card

          • 1. B — backward by whitespace-delimited words (BIG b)
          • 2. E — forward to end of a whitespace-delimited word (BIG e)
          • 3. gE — end of the previous BIG word (BIG ge)

    • One thing that is kind of annoying both in vim and the way LazyVim is configured is that there's no way to navigate between the individual words of CamelCaseWords or snake_case_words. You can use fC or t_ and similar if you want to, but I will later show you how to set up the nvim/Plugin/nvim-spider plugin that makes navigating these common programming constructs simpler.
      

  • 3.8. Line Targets (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/07 Line Targets)

    • If you are familiar with regular expressions, you might know that ^ is used to match the start of text or start of the line and that $ is used to match the end, so the mnemonic of using these two keybindings to match the beginning and end of the current line will hopefully be less unmemorable than they seem at first.
      
      There is a certain lack of symmetry between the two, however. The $ (Shift-4) command simply means "go to the end of the line", as in the last character before the ending newline, no matter what that character is. The ^ or caret (Shift-6) means "go to the beginning of the text on this line". The "of the text" there is important: if your line has whitespace at the beginning (e.g. indentation), the ^ caret will not go to the very first column, but will instead go to the first non-whitespace character.
      
      To move to the very beginning of the line, use the 0 key.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/07 Line Targets/Line Start Keyshorts

        • 1. What Keyshort moves to the first non-whitespace character on the line, and 2. what moves to column zero? card

          • 1. ^ (Shift+6) — first text on the line; skips leading indentation
          • 2. 0 — the very beginning of the line (first column), including whitespace
      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/07 Line Targets/Line End Keyshorts

        • 1. What Keyshort moves to the end of the line, and 2. what moves to the last non-blank character? card

          • 1. $ (Shift+4) — last character before the newline, regardless of trailing spaces
          • 2. g_ — last non-blank on the line (g then _; alternative combos include $ge or $be)

    • The two character combination g_ (g underscore) means "go to the last non-blank character". I guess _ kind of looks like "not a space", so it's kind of mnemonic? I include it to be comprehensive, but you'll likely not use it much. You also have the option of combining other commands you've learned so you don't have to memorize this one-off. For example, you can use the three character $ge (combining "end of line" with go backwards to end of word) or $be to move to the last non-blank on the line. You have options; pick the one that you find is easiest to remember or type!
      

  • 3.10. Jump History (My Notes: LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/08 Jump History)

    • [[Key/Control]]-o is the non-modal control-based keybinding that I use most often. I should honestly bind it to something more accessible, I use it so much. It basically means "Go to the place I jumped from".
      

    • If you jump too far, you can use the Control-i keybinding to jump forward in history. It's just the opposite of Control-o. I don't know why i and o were chosen for these; maybe because they are side-by-side on a Qwerty keyboard? They are used commonly enough that once you learn them, you won't forget.
      

      • LV4AD/Ch/03 Getting Around/08 Jump History/Jump List Back and Forward

        • 1. What Keyshort jumps back to where you came from in the jump list, and 2. what jumps forward again? card

          • 1. <C-o> — older position ("go to the place I jumped from")
          • 2. <C-i> — opposite of <C-o>; steps forward through jump history (same as <Tab> in many contexts)