VI Editor Pocket Reference

I use this book as a reference all too often. The authors do a good job at laying this book out, and the secrets of vi are all released in this book. I recommend this book mainly because of it's size. It's small enough to keep on the corner of your desk to reference when you need it.

This is the first time I've given any book five stars. That's because this is the best pocket quick reference of VI you're going to find. The information is presented as concisely as it can be and still remain accessible. Other, terser (and, yes, less expensive) quick reference cards for VI are too cryptic to be useful, in my opinion.If you don't already know VI, try an on-line tutorial (there are plenty) or buy the more complete "Learning VI" book from O'Reilly to get you started. After you've acquired the basics, periodically refer to the Pocket Reference to add yet another "I didn't know VI did that" command to your toolkit.

I always only knew enough of vi to get me in and out of it without getting frustrated. A very basic understanding such as the commands i, a, o, dd, dw, Y and P. Actually, those were just about all I used except for wq! I did all of my coding in GUI IDE's and such... Mainly 'Moleskine' (which is a very very nice editor, by the way). Recently, I realized that I hate having to always remove my hands from the keyboard every time I wanted to cut and paste or even scroll down the page. I decided to move on to vi. I tried elvis and vim. Since I don't like true in my source code, and work suggests 4 spaces instead of , then I had to go with vim because elvis didn't have the expand tab option. Anyway, I'm amazed at what vim (and elvis too) can do! I started out reading the vim and elvis docs and saw a whole slew of things it can do. This is going to save me a lot of time and effort when coding! I got some nice syntax highlighting set up in vim (to match how elvis does it... just black and white. easy on the eyes.) and learned a lot of about the editor. I figured that I wouldn't remember everything there was to know about the vi commands and such, so I went out and bought this book. Over the past 2 days I have been diving into it at least 10 times a day to discover if there are any commands or to get the right syntax for the ones I remember. This is already worth the [money] I spent on it!! I've learned a lot of things from it already.I'd say if you are a seasoned vi user, this book isn't going to be of much help to you. Also, if you are a new user to VI, you need to get a full tutorial such as the parent book to this so they can walk you through some things. This book is just a *Pocket Reference*! Meaning, if you forget a commands syntax, this is a good thing to have on your desk so you can grab it quickly! It's not going to teach you squat about vi if you don' t know how to even enter Insert mode! However, if you're like me and you only know enough to get you in and out of vi, pick this book up! You'll be amazed at the commands you have been missing and the commands that will help you very very much! VI beats a GUI editor for efficiency and productivity, hands down! Now, back to coding!

Recently it became absolutely necessary that I use a text based editor, such as emacs of vi, and thanks to this book, I've chosen vi. It explains quickly the commands and what to do with them. VI itself is very counterintuitive, and this little book provides the necessary help to change any file in any way as quickly as you'd like. I highly recommend it to have next to your computer when you use vi - even hardcore vi users might find its hints useful and figure out new ways of accomplishing certain tasks. The price is a little bit too much for a book this size, and technically you can get all the information about vi commands online, but if you like your computer stuff explained to you on paper, this is it. Have fun using vi!

I purchased this pocket reference as i needed to do some programming on a unix box and had not used vi before. This book was a total blessing, I was able to get instant answers on what commands I needed. This book helped me get the job done quickly and I no longer pull my hair out when I use vi. Thanks O'reilly !