Moving Around in Vim – Craft Automata

Here’s a quick guide to help you learn how to move around in Vim.

The Memorization Aid column contains a tip on remembering the actions of the command.
The Count column tells you if you can modify the command with a Count. A Count is a way to trigger the command more than once (equal to the value of the Count). For example, the 5w command will jump five WORDs.

Movement Commands

Key	Move Type	Action	Memorization Aid
`0`	Line	Go to first character of the line.
`^`	Line	Go to the first non-whitespace character of the line.	Similar symbol meaning in regex
`$`	Line	Go to the last character of the line.	Similar symbol meaning in regex
`W`	Words	Jump to the first character of the next WORD	WORD
`w`	Words	Jump to the first character of the next word	word
`E`	Words	Jump to the last character of the next WORD	End of WORD
`e`	Words	Jump to the last character of the next word	End of word
`B`	Words	Jump to the first character of the previous WORD	Back a WORD
`b`	Words	Jump to the first character of the previous word	Back up a word
`gE`	Words	Jump to the last character of the previous WORD.	Back up to the end of a WORD
`ge`	Words	Jump to the last character of the previous word.	Back up to the end of a word
`f<char>`Code language: HTML, XML (xml)	Line	Moves cursor on top of the next instance of the `<char>`. The `<char>` can be any character you can type in insert mode, including whitespaces.	Find the character forwards
`F<char>`Code language: HTML, XML (xml)	Line	Moves cursor on top of the previous instance of the `<char>`. The `<char>` can be any character you can type in insert mode, including whitespaces.	Find the character backwards
`t<char>`Code language: HTML, XML (xml)	Line	Moves cursor to one character before the next instance of the `<char>`. The `<char>` can be any character you can type in insert mode, including whitespaces.	UnTil the character forwards
`T<char>`Code language: HTML, XML (xml)	Line	Moves cursor to one character before the previous instance of the `<char>`. The `<char>` can be any character you can type in insert mode, including whitespaces.	UnTil the character backwards
`)`	Sentence	Jump to the first character of the next sentence.	In code, `()` contains parameters (like a sentence), and `{}` contains a large block of code (like a paragraph)
`(`	Sentence	Jump to the first character of the previous sentence	In code, `()` contains parameters (like a sentence), and `{}` contains a large block of code (like a paragraph)
`}`	Paragraph	Jump to next paragraph	In code, `()` contains parameters (like a sentence), and `{}` contains a large block of code (like a paragraph)
`{`	Paragraph	Jump to previous paragraph	In code, `()` contains parameters (like a sentence), and `{}` contains a large block of code (like a paragraph)
`h`	Character	Left
`j`	Character	Down
`k`	Character	Up
`l`	Character	Right
`%`	Matcher	Jump to the matching brace under the cursor (can be used on either opening or closing brace). Works on the following braces: `{ } [ ] ( )`.	The percentage symbol is made of a slash and two matching circles, like two matching braces.
`*`	Matcher	Jumps to the next instance of the word. Uses the non-symbol word underneath the cursor. Otherwise it jumps to the next word if cursor is on whitespace or a symbol.	Symmetrical with # key on your keyboard if you think of the 1 and 0 keys as the boundaries.
`#`Code language: PHP (php)	Matcher	Jumps to the previous instance of the word. Uses the non-symbol word underneath the cursor. Otherwise it jumps to the next word if cursor is on whitespace or a symbol.	This symbol is sometimes called a “hash”. This finds a word like a hash function uses a “hash” to find a value. (It’s not perfect, but maybe you’ll remember this even better).
`H`	Cursor/Screen	Move cursor to the top of the screen.	Move to the HIGH point of the screen
`M`	Screen	Move cursor to the center of the screen.	Move to the MID point of the screen
`L`	Screen	Move cursor to the bottom of the screen.	Move to the LOW point of the screen
`zz`	Screen	Move screen to place cursor in the middle	Recenter the screen to my cursor
`zt`	Screen	Move screen to place cursor at the top	Recenter the screen so my cursor is at the TOP
`zb`	Screen	Move screen to place cursor at the bottom	Recenter the screen so my cursor is at the BOTTOM
`,`	Repeat	Repeat movement in same direction. If direction was backwards, this movement will go forwards.	It’s easy to jump back and forth with `,` and `;`
`;`	Repeat	Repeat movement in same direction. If direction was backwards, this movement will also be backwards.	It’s easy to jump back and forth with `,` and `;`

Movement Commands

Leave a Reply Cancel reply