Most of us spend countless hours working on all kinds of tasks. We use tools and our own ways to complete our work, but can we always be these are the fastest ways. Most of us think we’re working as fast as we can, but there are things we might not have yet discovered that could help speed things up, by a little bit or by several fold. We have spoken some in the past, such as Colemak, the keyboard layout that has the potential of doubling your typing speed. Vim, the topic for this article is not a keyboard layout, but it is related. It is a text editor but it’s much more than that; it is a way of interacting with software.
Vimium-FF offers vim bindings via WebExt. However all WebExt extensions offering vim bindings are limited and will not work as well as they should (you will still need the mouse), due to how WebExt/nu-firefox works. Other Vim Binding Options. The Vimium-FF extension is an extension aimed at programmers and developers. The idea of this extension is provide the spirit of Vim to the web browser. Vim is a minimalist text editor that is controlled via the keyboard. Vimium-FF makes Mozilla Firefox fully.
Vim is a newer version of vi, a text editor from 1976, nearly 44 years ago. In recent times, nearly everyone who uses Linux or any *nix base operating system has used Vi or Vim. You might wonder, why a text editor should hold so much importance today. It has been used to type in a lot of code, for operating systems and software we have been using over the decades, no doubt, but it’s the way you navigate through lines of code of any text for that matter, that makes Vim so impressive. It’s just not for programmers. It can be used by writers, those who want to write journal and take notes, those who need to clean up data before posting it into a mail, a presentation or a spreadsheet. Vim (Vi) can speed it up.
We spend a lot of time and energy with keystrokes to type in information, to edit it, and to get from one point of the screen to another. This means several down, left, right key presses. All of it adds up through the day into a lot of time and energy. Vim is all about being able to replace words and characters without having to jump across to backspace, delete and space bar. It needs the least number of key presses and movements to get work done. You can try out Vim for yourself today, on any operating system. Most Linux distributions ship with one and if you are a Windows user, there are releases such as gVim and Neovim that you can download for free. If you happen to install them, you might find them to be quite bland, and they look like something out of the 80s. Don’t be surprised though. There are a lot of customisations for Vim. You will find a lot of information online if you look for the vimrc configuration file. Vim has a world of customisations available to the user.
Vimium For Edge
Vim has a few modes in it. Most text editors let you type right away but Vim does not. You are always set in a navigation mode, where pressing a key doesn’t print anything on the screen. By default, the keys, hjkl are used for navigation, instead of the direction keys. The idea is to keep your fingers on these keys and not switch to your mouse or your direction keys. e and b for example, are used for going ahead a word at a time, or behind. y completes the copy function, while p pastes. There are different upper and lower-case commands too. There are quite a few of these keys one needs to remember and get used to. The i key enables the Insert mode, letting you type. When you are done, simply press the Esc key to return to the navigation mode.
The v key enables the Visual mode that lets you select a word or lines, then copy, paste or delete them. The . key repeats the last step you performed, which is particularly great if you want to paste a specific set of text into different places or replace specific text in different paragraphs. As complicated as it seems, these keyboard shortcuts are quite intuitive and they come naturally to you, after a few days of using them. Vim also supports plugins too, that you can download. There are plugins managers such as Vundle and Vim-Plug that can be installed on your PC or laptop. Plugins can add features ranging from colour schemes, code formatting, language tools, quick reference tools, even media playback controls and more.
Vim isn’t limited to text editors, there are even extensions for browsers that let you navigate using only the keyboard. One of the most popular ones is called Vimium and it is available for Firefox and Chrome. You can switch between tabs, scroll, jump to the nearest text box, even pin tabs using nothing more than a key or two. Most of the key bindings are like the ones you might have used on Vim. While it seems pointless, you will be surprised by how useful the shortcuts help when you’re researching information or trying to navigate across 100 tabs. Head over to the Firefox (Vimium-FF) or the Chrome Web Store to download the extension. Once installed, simply press the ? key to get the list of all the shortcuts. You can customize them by clicking the Vimium icon in the toolbar, then on Options. Make changes as needed but try using the default ones since they are common across other software.
Vimium(vimium-FF)とは webブラウザをvimライクに使えるようにするアドオン（FFはFirefox版）。 手をキーボードのホームポジションから動かすことなく多くの動作ができるため、非常に使い勝手がよく、マウスへ手を動かさないため、慣れてくると爽快に. Vimium-FF and Vimium C are add-ons for Firefox that allow you to utilize similar keyboard shortcuts as Vim - to a degree, of course. I am not sure I can link here but search them there and they should pop up. And I would like to know - from people who have used both - which one is better, or which one they prefer, and why.
We also spoke about VS Code, a great software development tool for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. There are even extensions for it, that set the Vim key binds into VS Code. You can navigate pages using the Vim convention. You can find many other software that offer the Vim way of doing things.
While Vim is by no means, unheard of, it isn’t all too popular either. We hope you give it a try and you see the benefits of it in your work. This was only a quick introduction to Vim. To learn more new exciting things about Vim and everything around technology, keep visiting RelianceDigital.in.
ウェブブラウザをもっと便利に使えないかなということで見つけたアドオンであるvimiumについて紹介します。
webブラウザをvimライクに使えるようにするアドオン（FFはFirefox版）。
手をキーボードのホームポジションから動かすことなく多くの動作ができるため、非常に使い勝手がよく、マウスへ手を動かさないため、慣れてくると爽快にブラウジングができる。
google-chrome : vimium
vivaldi : vimium（chromeと同じ）
firefox : vimium-FF
以上のページからアドオンを入手できる。
以下が普段使用するキーマッピングのチートシートです大文字のキー入力はShiftと同時押しという意味です。これ以外にもありますので、知りたい方はvimiumを追加した状態で?を入力してください。helpが表示されます。
| キー入力 | 動作 |
|---|---|
| j | 下スクロール |
| k | 上スクロール |
| h | 左スクロール |
| l | 右スクロール |
| d | 下へ半ページ移動 |
| u | 上へ半ページ移動 |
| gg | ページ最上部へ移動 |
| G | ページ最下部へ移動 |
| f | ページ内のリンクをマッピング(そのキーを入力するとジャンプ) |
| F | ページ内のリンクをマッピング(そのキーを入力すると新タブで開く) |
| t | 新タブを開く |
| gi | 一番上の入力ウィンドウに入力 |
| o | 新しいタブで検索 |
| J | タブを左へ移動 |
| K | タブを右へ移動 |
| H | 戻る(back) |
| L | 進む(forward) |
| x | タブを閉じる |
| X | 消したタブをもとに戻す |
| yy | 現在のURLをコピー |
| p | コピーしてあるURLをカレントタブで開く |
| P | コピーしてあるURLを新タブで開く |
| ｒ | ページの再読込 |
| / | ページ内検索 |
| n | 検索結果次へ |
| N | 検索結果前へ |
| i | インサートモード |
使ってみたら思うのですが、たまにおかしくなることがあります。その際は取り敢えずEscを押してみます。それでもダメならwebブラウザ自体のショートカットもしくはマウスを使用しています。便利にするためのアドオンに拘りすぎて逆に不便にしちゃわないように注意してください。
普段よく使うwebブラウザ自体のショートカットも軽く紹介しておきます。
Vimium For Chrome
| キー入力 | 動作 |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+tab | タブ移動（右） |
| Ctrl+Shift+tab | タブ移動（左） |
| Ctrl+w | タブ消去 |
| Ctrl+r | タブの再読込 |
| F5 | タブの再読込 |
| Ctrl+t | 新タブを開く |
| Alt+← | 戻る(back) |
| Alt＋→ | 進む(forward) |
| Space | １ページ下へ |
| Shift+Space | １ページ上へ |
Vimium-ff 使い方
とても便利だし、アドオンなのでインストールがなく楽に使い始められて好きにやめられるので、是非試しに使ってみてほしいです。
また、こんな便利なのもあったよというものがあれば教えていただけると幸いです！