In this video, I explain a method I use to learn Vim/Neovim and focus only on what I need, avoiding information overload.

The method consists of 4 steps:

1. Identify a problem
2. Identify solutions to that problem
3. Keep the solution that covers the most cases
4. Learn the rest later

I think NeoVim is extremely overhyped, while Vim — especially gVim — is drastically underrated. NeoVim changes hyper‑actively together with its plugins, so something that worked one day might stop working the next because of constant updates. Because of this, maintaining it can be a complete nightmare, even if someone is a Lua prodigy. In contrast, classic Vim is stable, reliable, and rock‑solid.

What makes NeoVim appealing compared to Vim is that it’s full of flashy plugins, but in reality most of those plugins are completely unnecessary for real projects. Plus, NeoVim users conveniently forget to mention that almost every important plugin has a proper equivalent in Vim. For example: Telescope → fzf.vim, nvim-tree → NERDTree, lualine → vim-airline, commenting → vim-commentary, surround → vim-surround, Git → vim-fugitive. And they’re much more straightforward. Thanks to Vimscript, configuring Vim is far easier than mindlessly copying Lua code. And there’s coc.nvim available for classic Vim as well, which can turn Vim into a very powerful IDE.

I’m sticking with gVim even if it’s probably the most despised version of Vim (in my opinion completely unjustifiably). Thanks to the GUI, it’s much better than a terminal program because it doesn’t depend on the terminal, and copy/paste from the clipboard works simply and flawlessly — exactly how a text and code editor should.

It’s a bit like how Arch Linux users tend to look down on Debian users, regardless of the fact that Arch isn’t exactly stable — it’s just well‑hyped and more rapidly developed, but it also breaks more easily. Meanwhile Debian is solid and stable.

I'm running Vim inside WSL and can't get the `+` register to work.

When I try:

"+yy

I get:

W23: Clipboard regiter not available, using register 0

However:

:echo has('clipboard')               "1
:echo has('unnamedplus')             "1

vim --version | grep clipboard
+clipboard
+xterm_clipboard

I'm running /usr/bin/vim.gtk3, but:

• $DISPLAY is empty
• $WAYLAND_DISPLAY is empty
• xclip/xsel are not installed
• clip.exe workgs from WSL (echo test | /mnt/c/Windows/System32/clip.exe)

Is this expected because I'm runnign a headless TTY, or should vim.gt3 still be able to use the Windows clipboard? Is win32yank.exe the recommended solution?

In neovim, this can be done by:

vim.opt.guicursor:append("t:ver25")
vim.opt.guicursor:append("t:blinkon0")

but, this doesn't work in vim, written in vim script:

set guicursor+=t:ver25
set guicursor+=t:blinkon0

E546: Illegal mode: guicursor+=t:ver25 line 30: E546: Illegal mode: guicursor+=t:blinkon0

I have the following to make my cursor a block in normal mode and a beam in insert mode in Vim, but this doesnt work for the :terminal

let &t_SI = "\<Esc>[6 q"
let &t_EI = "\<Esc>[2 q"

is there a way to make the same behaviour possible inside vim's built in terminal ?

OS : cachyos
vim : 9.2
terminal : konsole and kitty

Thanks in advance

I’m working with two files, File A and File B, and I want to copy text from one file to the other.

Specifically, I want to:

1. Open File A and select/yank a section of text.
2. Switch to File B.
3. Paste the yanked text into File B.

What is the correct way to yank text from File A and paste it into File B? Is there a specific register or command I should use to copy text between separate files?

We regularly remove standalone posts about tools that use vim-inspired keybindings. There are too many of them, and individually they dilute the subreddit. But the content is valuable, and many of you want to know about these tools.

So here's the place for it.

Share any tool that uses vim-like keybindings, whether it's a browser extension, terminal emulator, IDE plugin, note-taking app, PDF reader, or anything else. If it has hjkl navigation, modal editing, or vim-inspired controls, it belongs here.

For each tool you share, try to include:

• What it is and what problem it solves
• Which vim features it supports (navigation, modal editing, text objects, etc.)
• A link to the project

This thread is posted monthly. If you find something mid-month, save it for here rather than posting a standalone thread (which will be removed).

I discovered ai agents lately, and I am wondering if there is any good harness for Vim. I have tried to run copilot CLI in a terminal window but it was a bad experience due to that copilot cli is a full tui program that cannot be replicated satisfactorily in a vim terminal.

Any hints?

Preferably in Vim9.

Please be gentle, first time publishing something publicly.

I use this emacs' eww-inspired html/plain text browser that uses curl and pandoc to do html -> plain text into a vim buffer. It is sufficient for my daily quick searches and keeps the results in a vim buffer for reference.

If this is useful and works for you, I would appreciate feedback on publishing and maintaining this as a plugin for everyone

I'm looking for creative things one could do with selected blocks to make life easier - and associate them to keys. Some common keybindings I use are:

xnoremap _ :g/^\s*$/d<CR> # delete all empty lines
xnoremap # :g/^\s*#/d<CR> # delete all comments (assuming #)
xnoremap s :sort<CR>

How to persist echo from this function call (without using timers)

function! VisualStats()
    let wc      = wordcount()
    let [l1,l2] = sort([line('v'), line('.')])
    let txt     = join(getline(l1,l2), "\n")
    let sp      = len(substitute(txt, '[^ ]', '', 'g'))
    let st      = len(substitute(txt, '[^.!?]', '', 'g'))
    let pa      = empty(txt) ? 0 : len(split(txt, '\n\s*\n'))
    echo "CHARs " . wc.visual_chars . " WORDs " . wc.visual_words
    \. " SENTs " . (st > 0 ?st :1) . " PARAs " . pa . " SPACEs " . sp
endfunction
xnoremap <silent> C <Cmd>call VisualStats()<CR>

just like when directly keymapped?

xnoremap <silent> c <Cmd>let g:wc=wordcount()<CR><Esc>:
    \let t=join(getline("'<","'>"),"\n")<Bar>
    \let sp=len(substitute(t,'[^ ]','','g'))<Bar>
    \let st=len(substitute(t,'[^.!?]','','g'))<Bar>
    \let pa=empty(t)?0:len(split(t,'\n\s*\n'))<Bar>
    \echo "CHARs ".g:wc.visual_chars." WORDs ".g:wc.visual_words.
    \" SENTs ".(st>0?st:1)." PARAs ".pa." SPACEs ".sp<Bar>
    \unlet g:wc t sp st pa<CR>