#vim tips

Because Vim's features are legion and fractal and AFAIK no one ever gets to the bottom of them, here is one that I found recently which is great: The file explorer.

(Video version by a nice Irish(?) person, and table-style cheatsheet in Shownotes: here)

If you use Vim but don't know what I'm talking about, chances are you've seen it anyway when you accidentally opened a directory and got a list of files. Good news! You can open that on purpose, too!

First of all: :e <dirname> will open that directory in the current window as Explorer view. Hit Enter on a item in this view to open that file or directory in this split.

Want to open it at the working directory? :e. has you covered; no space necessary. If you prefer verbosity or have it mapped to something else, :edit. will work, too. (Sidenote: If you're still using :o/:open to open documents, cease immediately and use :e/:edit instead. It has autocompletion and is maintained; :o is technically deprecated.)

Rather open an explore view from wherever this current file sits? Use :E. Want to split it out side by side? :sp. gets you the working directory, or :vsp. for vertical, and :Sex and :Vex gets you the current file's directory.

What if you don't just want to browse existing files? I'm glad you asked! % brings up a box to create a new regular file, and d a new directory. <Esc> will back you out of it, as usual. D will delete a file or (empty) directory; it will ask for confirmation, but be careful of mixing up d/D all the same. R will bring up a rename box; edit the second path to move the file or directory.