The first time I opened vim (it was probably just vi at the time) I couldn't exit it and had to shut down the computer by holding down the power button (!) to regain control of the machine. It took a while before I tried it again. Ultimately nano felt like it was for kids and emacs felt like an even worse option than vi so I memorized a few sequences, eg :q!, :wq, how to enter the insert mode and how to exit it and simple edit commands like dd and x and this gave me enough proficiency to get by.

Most all the terminal commands require prior study before they become easy to use. Its because Unix was created by engineers rather than by ui/ux design professionals.

i agree with your request. vim used to scare me first.

as a side note: one of the reasons I believe as to why vscode grew in popularity was due to it lowering the barrier to just open up the editor and use it right away(with plugin system and a nice GUI). it is something vim by default doesn't do.

What’s wrong with nano? I love nano. As a general thing I love Linux programs that are terminal based but also have a decent UI. Neomutt comes to mind for email.

This 👆👆👆.

Use what you prefer, that's a big part of what makes linux great. I get not wanting to go through the learning curve.

That being said, vim is pretty amazing to use, and super efficient, especially with some nice nvim plugins and customization.

On one hand, yes. On the other hand, you don't need all the keybinds, just remember the useful ones!

Want to delete a single word? Esc to enter command mode, d i w to delete the word you're on, I to begin typing again.
Everything between two of any char, usually parenthesis or quotes? Same process but d i {char} so something like "what are (you doing senpai)" can be made "what are ()" with just a few very quick keystrokes.
Delete to end of line? D.
Copy a whole line? yy (or Y for the rest of the line after cursor). Any time you do dd to delete a full line (or D for the rest of the line, or any other delete action) the contents are also copied so you can paste them again somewhere else.

Can you do anything with vim that you can't do with a GUI + moise? Technically no - but with vim you can do things significantly faster. There is an initial learning curve to get used to basic keybinds and the 2 modes, but it's well worth it, and not using the mouse is intoxicatingly faster and more fun.

I highly recommend doom emacs over vanilla vim- all the power of emacs, but with vim keybinds and a lot of other QOL features. There isn't much that isn't already built into vanilla emacs, much less doom emacs, and even less that can't be added with some packages that you can install from in the app. Web browser? Eww, and you even can use your vim keybinds in it. Doesn't render everything great graphics wise, but it's perfect for looking up documentation if you're lazy. Email? Built in baby. Git? Magit. Notes? Embrace the one true note format, org files and org-roam. File explorer? Dired right in baby. Terminal? Space + o + {t, T} for a terminal in its own buffer for all your terminal pleasures.

I also always install neovim as a backup, it was my favorite vim client for a while. It's useful to be able to use it for basic editing if I'm already trolling around in a terminal such as quick edits to docker-compose files before rerunning them

I agree that remembering all these commands is a hassle, and so do nvim devs. that's why they recommend not to learn the commands^1^. these will become your second habit if used enough number of times. just like Ctrl+c/v.

1: from :Tutor in nvim:

NOTE: As you go through this tutorial, do not try to memorize everything, your Neovim vocabulary will expand with usage. Consider returning to this tutorial periodically for a refresher.

also, even if you don't want to use a terminal-based editor, I'd recommended you to give this talk from Bram Moolenaar(creator of vim) a watch. not the whole talk, just a few first minutes. you can even use YouTube chapters to skim through.

have a nice day :)

Honestly I felt the same way for a long time, until I decided to just learn the motions. Now I couldn't go back.

The combination of actions and motions makes it incredibly fast to edit code - Imagine you have a strong in double quotes that you want to change the double quotes to single quotes. There's a plugin called vim-surround that combines with the basic motions and with my cursor before or within the strong, I can just type cs"' and it's done.

Want to copy everything within a pair of parentheses? yi) ... So many things like that.

Even for editing things like HTML, `cst delete surrounding tag. That will remove the tag around some content without changing the content.

(Neo)vim is incredibly important to my workflow these days and it feels like I write and edit code at the speed of thought.

Or you can get the best of both worlds and use VSCode with the Neovim plugin! All the benefits of a GUI, but with vim keybinds for the editing!

The challenge now is escaping the neovim terminal

Via this video (thanks @yazgoo@lemmy.ml!) i recently learned a bunch of tricks about :term and am now tempted to start using it all the time.

Choke my computer to exit the text editor? I use nano. I only choke the computer when it asks seductively

Holy shit! Tabs?!

That does it. I'm going back to Windows.

Tabs in a text editor. My mind is blown.

Blasphemy…don’t bring Microsoft’s shitty proprietary editor and shitty proprietary OS near my holy text editor.

Ignoring that vscode cannot math the two giants: exe? Really?

I love jobs(the bash one, not the apple guy)!

Okay but like....why?

Getting into ~~edit~~ Insert mode

I'll admit, I took the rage bait.