This video was released a bit early for patrons and youtube members (Tier 2 and above). I also do a patron exclusive podcast for all levels each week. patreon.com/thelinuxcast

Quick fun story: one time at a job interview I was asked a joke question: "how to quit Vim", which I of course answered immediately, and the follow-up question was "how do you quit Vim in easy mode?" I have never even heard of that mode before that, to which I admitted but asked to let me try it anyway, which they allowed with a reasonable "no Google" request. Didn't even take me 5 minutes. Vim is awesome and pretty reasonably logical once you know the very basic controls.

@no_name4796

Ай бұрын

I now would love to know in which place you are interviewed for a job on vim. Would love to work there lol

There should have been a constant display for help shortcut with a list of common actions such as exit vim😂

Whoah, I thought that this was some extension for people to install and modify their Vims, but its a flag in the base package? I never would have seen that coming.

This is literally poor man's Nano.

Nice video, it could have been called 'How to Make A Vim User Cry'.

@Bruces-Eclectic-World

Жыл бұрын

🤣

I actually know about this easy mode. I discovered it long time ago. It's called "-y" option, because it's pronounced "why". At least this is the only logical explanation I can make up. And BTW vim -y starts the graphical user interface gvim if you have it installed.

@anon_y_mousse

Жыл бұрын

Yep, me too. I've always found that aspect annoying, because I'm nearly always in the terminal.

Agreed, it's strange. I've never liked it because when I use it it brings up gvim instead of opening in the terminal and I hate having to hit ctrl-o to enter commands and whatnot. I didn't know about ctrl-L, so thank you for that.

I actually use easy mode as a note scratchpad sometimes. Lighted I alias "vim -y" to "note" and it's temporary at best, I usually don't save doing this. Mostly because I never thought to see that Ctrl+q to actually work.

I tried easy mode and couldn't exit, lol. My reward for laughing at vim newbs.

@no_name4796

Ай бұрын

Crazy how vim easy mode is harder then vim itself lol

(cua-mode t) emacs easy mode

As a vs code user I find it really useful. Need more developments on it!!!

Lol, I have the gvim build installed on Arch, in my case it opens the GTK version of Vim, which normally doesn't happen when typing vim instead of gvim. Fun thing is that I am still getting the relative line numbers that I enabled. To get "back" to Insert mode after pressing Ctrl L, it seems to be the Escape key that does this for you, opposite of the normal way.

This new camera angle works much better, great video!

Glad you're feeling better. I missed your videos.

"yeah i use vim"

this makes me curious to know how many vim users have just never read the man page for vim before.

i've always found it strange why a text editor would make it difficult to actually edit text. this could actually be a vim client a normie like me could use

@davidh.4944

Жыл бұрын

Because it isn't more difficult, really. Vim is certainly more _complex_ than your average editor, and it has a _steep_ learning curve, but with great complexity comes great power. When you know what you are doing, and have it configured to your liking, you gain the ability to fly through text, making amazing and sweeping edits with little effort. You just need to put in the time and effort to learn it. That said, I am not a raging vim fanboy or anything. It _is_ more geared toward code production than prose, and there are situations where its mode-based workflow can be more of a hindrance than a benefit (e.g. fixing many small, random, typos scattered over a block of text-jump, insert, change, escape, jump, insert, change, escape, jump...). And sometimes the mental mode-switching required slows you down more than the physical. In those cases I usually switch to a more traditional gui editor like Kate. But for the most part vim works exceptionally well as an editor. I mean, there obviously must be _some_ reason it remains one of the most popular text editors around, some 30 years after it first came out (close to 50 including it's vi predecessor).

@anon_y_mousse

Жыл бұрын

@@davidh.4944 You just need to learn more of it and you'll love it more. For random scattered typos, say a single letter, "teh" to "the", you could put the cursor on the e and hit `xp` real quick. For say "foo" to "foe", hit `ere`, first `e` to get to the end of the word, then `r` to replace a single letter then `e` to replace the o. Let's say you've got a whole word you just don't like, `cdw"new word"` works fine. If you've got updates you need to make across the whole file, `:%s/foo/bar/gc` to replace all foo with bar but ask before each change. You should try the vim tutor, you might have fun.

@mega_gamer93

Жыл бұрын

@@anon_y_mousse did you mean to type "ciw"? "cdw" is not a thing in vim

@anon_y_mousse

Жыл бұрын

@@mega_gamer93 Actually, I meant `cw` as that deletes the word and puts you in insert mode. Had a brain fart.

@davidh.4944

Жыл бұрын

@@anon_y_mousse I have been using Vim for over twenty years. Don't tell me I have to "Learn it more". I know _all about_ everything you wrote and much more. Vimtutor, indeed... It's not about the individual edits, it's about the process as a whole. In Vim, every change requires typing in some kind of search or movement string, then once you've homed in on the string you want, typing some kind of edit string. Every one you do needs just that little bit more time, effort, and thinking to accomplish, especially when each change itself is short, has to be done just a bit differently than the others, and requires multiple mode-switches and awkward-to-use keys. In a gui editor, however, I can usually just click-highlight-type. I don't need to struggle with it as much, I just put the cursror straight on what needs to be changed and change it. In any case, I was just to give a simple example that didn't require too much explanation. The reality is that it is extremely situational, and hard to describe succinctly. In _most_ cases Vim is as easy or easier to use than any other editor, but the reality is that there are just some combinations of conditions that require extra mental and physical effort, and can be done more efficiently in a graphical editor, and no amount of practice or fancy plug-ins will help.

Cool. I guess I can now “use vim like the cool kids.”

This is HERESY! Vim is like the Dark Souls of text editors. Vim DOES NOT NEED an easy mode.

Vim and Micro had a baby.

@umikaliprivate

Жыл бұрын

you mean nano?

@nealinux

Жыл бұрын

@@umikaliprivate micro editor

Great to hear you are better now! This easy mode is really strange, I just cannot think of a good purpose for this. I have never heard of it and before watching your video I thought it would maybe offer some context-sensitive help to ease new Vim users in. But as it is it is pretty useless. I would advocate removing this mode from Vim and save a tiny bit of disk space.

Caps Lock as Esc is so good. Just 'setxkbmap -layout us -option caps:escape &' in your .xprofile. Thx for the video man. Maybe it is good if you ssh in a server and you dont know how to Vim but now i dont know how to quit vim again.

Looks like this mode is supported only in vim and not in neovim.

I like keyboard-first softwares but I do not get the point of having weird shortcuts like `u` for undo instead of the standard `ctrl + z`.

There is no Esc(ape)

Whyyyyy? I like my Vim straight from the bottle!

People actually figured out how to use vim? that's the part that should freak you out. 🤣 kidding aside, it's cool that easy mode exists. it's nice to have a notepad actually behave like a notepad is expected to. most of the time the vim commands don't even work for me, so I did the reasonable thing and just retreated back to nano after trying to fight with it to do very basic things for a few days. I can't be issuing the same command over and over again several times before actually starts working. It's just not for me.

Matt, I have had the same experience. I don’t recommend it. 🙄

so easy mode is actually normal mode

Doesn't seem to exist in neovim

What they made vim good?

@martinvandenbroek2532

Жыл бұрын

usable, not good

how do i exit vim -y

@anon_y_mousse

Жыл бұрын

There are multiple ways. In the video he mentioned ctrl-q or you could hit ctrl-o then :q or :q! if you've made changes you don't want to save, or ctrl-L and then :q or :q!

@CrazedTamar

Жыл бұрын

@@anon_y_mousse this “easy mode” is harder than normal vim

To me, the copy and paste thing should be that way in regular vim... other than that, meh !!

Hard to exit? :wq! or :q! how is that hard?

@TheLinuxCast

Жыл бұрын

I didn't make the meme

Thanks for trying Matt! No matter how hard you try, your still not going to get me to leave my Nano... 🙂 LLAP 🖖

@TheLinuxCast

Жыл бұрын

Puke, nano

@Bruces-Eclectic-World

Жыл бұрын

@@TheLinuxCast How's that go? Oh!!! "I got your Puke", Vim Boy! 🤣🤪 LLAP 🖖

I actually use (neo)vim this way. Everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I like the scripting abilities but just want the editor to act "normal".

I don't get why this is weird? Its just an optional mode that makes it behave like a traditional non-modal text editor.

@webflyer035

Жыл бұрын

Mouse support & arrow keys are welcome, but it's weird because now we have to learn everything again (including how to exit vim😂)

I mean, this is just a nano clone

So basically this is Vim for those that don't know how to use Vim but want to say they use Vim. I like Vim, but not like this. I'd think if I wanted an easier Vim, I'd use Micro.

@TheLinuxCast

Жыл бұрын

Yes. Seems to be.

Maybe it's still under development 🙄

thats so dope thanks MATT