Mac Terminal Vi Commands



  1. Mac Terminal Commands
  2. Terminal Cat Command Mac
  3. Mac Terminal Vi Command
  4. Mac Terminal Commands Ip
  5. The Mac Command Line With Terminal
  6. Mac Terminal Vi Commands Examples

The new Dark Mode in macOS Mojave is a nice addition and is – especially inthe night hours — more pleasing to your eyes than the light mode.

However, enabling Dark Mode will not change the Terminal profile, which isa little bit annoying – especially if your color theme has a light and a darkvariant (like the infamous Solarized, Snow, One, or my own Rasta theme).

If you change your Terminal profile to something dark, Vim still doesn’t lookright because it uses its own mechanism for light/dark backgrounds (see :help'background' for details) and doesn’t know about the changes you made to theTerminal profile.

If you execute :set background=dark in Vim (and if you color schemesupports it), Vim looks nice and dark now, too.

You can open up Terminal on your Mac (perhaps by opening Spotlight on your Mac with Command⌘-Space key combination and type “Terminal”. Traverse to a folder you want to work in (documents will do. Try removing that line from /.bashprofile then open a new terminal window and verify that your paths are set correctly. You don't have to use a command line text editor, you can use BareBones Software's excellent and free TextWrangler. This should reduce errors trying to figure out how vi works.

However, on the next day, the fun begins again when you want to switcheverything back to light mode …

Wouldn’t it be nice if this could all be accomplished with a single command?

There are tools, that help you with switching to/from macOS Dark Mode (e.g.,NightOwl or Shifty), but they can’t change your Terminal profile or notify Vim.

As it turns out, it’s not too hard to implement a little program that doesexactly this:

  • You can uses the defaults command to get the current macOS Dark Theme mode:

  • You can use AppleScript (oh, how I love this language …) to set Dark Mode andupdate the Terminal profile:

  • You can wrap both things with a Python script:

  • You can use the timer_start() function introduced in Vim 8 and neovim toregularly check for the current Dark Mode settings. Put this into your Vim config:

  • You can create an Automator action that runs the Python script and thatcan be activated with a global shortcut. I use ⌥⌘D (you need todeactivate this shortcut for showing/hiding the Dock first). This is theAppleScript I used:

The drawback of this method is that the current application (at the time youpress ⌥⌘D) is used as “source” of the action you get two dialogs asking youto give that app permissions to remote control the System Settings and Terminal.

A better solution would be if the authors of NightOwl and Shifty wouldintegrated this into their tools. I’m gonna contact them and see what happens. :-)

Update:

MacVimgot anOSAppearanceChanged event that is emitted every time MacVim changes its appearance.

Thanks to Frank for the heads up!

What is vi

The vi editor is elaborated as visual editor. Ps4 turning on sound. It is installed in every Unix system. In other words, it is available in all Linux distros. It is user-friendly and works same on different distros and platforms. It is a very powerful application. An improved version of vi editor is vim.

The vi editor has two modes:

  • Command Mode: In command mode, actions are taken on the file. The vi editor starts in command mode. Here, the typed words will act as commands in vi editor. To pass a command, you need to be in command mode.
  • Insert Mode: In insert mode, entered text will be inserted into the file. The Esc key will take you to the command mode from insert mode.

By default, the vi editor starts in command mode. To enter text, you have to be in insert mode, just type 'i' and you'll be in insert mode. Although, after typing i The best music player app for mac. nothing will appear on the screen but you'll be in insert mode. Now you can type anything.

To exit from insert mode press Esc key, you'll be directed to command mode.

If you are not sure which mode you are in, press Esc key twice and you'll be in command mode.

Using vi

The vi editor tool is an interactive tool as it displays changes made in the file on the screen while you edit the file.

Mac Terminal Vi Commands

In vi editor you can insert, edit or remove a word as cursor moves throughout the file.

Commands are specified for each function like to delete it's x or dd.

The vi editor is case-sensitive. For example, p allows you to paste after the current line while P allows you to paste before the current line.

Mac Terminal Commands

vi syntax:

In the terminal when you'll type vi command with a file name, the terminal will get clear and content of the file will be displayed. If there is no such file, then a new file will be created and once completed file will be saved with the mentioned file name.

Linux vi example

Let's understand vi through an example:

To start vi open your terminal and type vi command followed by file name. If your file is in some other directory, you can specify the file path. And if in case, your file doesn't exist, it will create a new file with the specified name at the given location.

Example:

Look at the above snapshot, we are creating a new file file.txt (as this file doesn't exist) and have entered the full path for the directory Downloads.

Terminal Cat Command Mac

Command mode

Mac Terminal Vi Command

This is what you'll see when you'll press enter after the above command. If you'll start typing, nothing will appear as you are in command mode. By default vi opens in command mode.

Look at the above snapshot, it is blank as it is a new file. To start typing, you have to move to the insert mode. At the end of the terminal window, directory name and file name are displayed.

Insert mode

To move to the insert mode press i. Although, there are other commands also to move to insert mode which we'll study in next page.

Look at the above snapshot, after pressing i we have entered into insert mode. Now we can write anything. To move to the next line press enter.

Once you have done with your typing, press esc key to return to the command mode.

To save and quit

You can save and quit vi editor from command mode. Before writing save or quit command you have to press colon (:). Colon allows you to give instructions to vi.

exit vi table:

CommandsAction
:wqSave and quit
:wSave
:qQuit
:w fnameSave as fname
ZZ Save and quit
:q! Quit discarding changes made
:w! Save (and write to non-writable file)

To exit from vi, first ensure that you are in command mode. Now, type :wq and press enter. It will save and quit vi.

Type :wq to save and exit the file.

Look at the above snapshot, command :wq will save and quit the vi editor. When you'll type it in command mode, it will automatically come at bottom left corner.

If you want to quit without saving the file, use :q. This command will only work when you have not made any changes in the file.

Look at the above snapshot, this file is modified and hence on typing :q it displays this message at bottom left corner.

The above file can be saved with the command :!q. It discards the changes made in the file and save it.

Look at the above snapshot, we have typed :!q, it will save our file by discarding the changes made.

Vi Commands

Linux vi editor is different from other editors. You have to use different keys to use different functions. Acronis disk director for mac os. Although, it's quite easy and interesting to use vi editor.

The vi editor commands are case sensitive.

Have a look at the vi commands in the following table.

To switch from command to insert mode:

Command Action
iStart typing before the current character
IStart typing at the start of current line
aStart typing after the current character
AStart typing at the end of current line
oStart typing on a new line after the current line
OStart typing on a new line before the current line

To move around a file:

Commands Action
jTo move down
kTo move up
hTo move left
lTo move right

To jump lines:

Commands Action
GWill direct you at the last line of the file
``Will direct you to your last position in the file

To delete:

CommandsAction
xDelete the current character
XDelete the character before the cursor
rReplace the current character
xpSwitch two characters
ddDelete the current line
DDelete the current line from current character to the end of the line
dGdelete from the current line to the end of the file

To repeat and undo:

Commands Action
u Undo the last command
.Repeat the last command

Command to cut, copy and paste:

Commands Action
ddDelete a line
yy(yank yank) copy a line
pPaste after the current line
P Paste before the current line

Command to cut, copy and paste in blocks:

CommandsAction
<n>ddDelete the specified n number of lines
<n>yyCopy the specified n number of lines

Start and end of line:

CommandsAction
θBring at the start of the current line
^Bring at the start of the current line
$Bring at the end of the current line
Delete till start of a line
d$ Delete till end of a line

Joining lines:

CommandsAction
JJoin two lines
yypRepeat the current line
ddpSwap two lines

Move forward or backward:

CommandsAction
wMove one word forward
bMove one word backward
<n>wMove specified number of words forward
dwDelete one word
ywCopy one word
<n>dwDelete specified number of words

Search a string:

CommandsAction
/stringForward search for given string
?stringBackward search for given string
/^string Forward search string at beginning of a line
/string$Forward search string at end of a line
nGo to next occurrence of searched string
/<he>Search for the word he (and not for there, here, etc.)
/pl[abc]ceSearch for place, plbce, and plcce

Replace all

Syntax:

Example:

Mac Terminal Commands Ip

Mac Terminal Vi Commands
CommandsAction
:1,$ s/readable/changed/Replace forward with backward from first line to the last line
:3,6 s/letters/neww/g Replace forward with backward from third line to the ninth line

Text buffers:

CommandsAction
'addDelete current line and put text in buffer a
'ap Paste the line from buffer a

Abbreviation

Syntax:

The Mac Command Line With Terminal

Example:

CommandsAction
:ab au abbrevition and unabbreviationAbbreviate au to be 'abbrevition and unabbreviation'
:una au
Un - abbreviate au

Vi Editor Index

Mac Terminal Vi Commands Examples

Vi Editor