Learning the vi Editor, Sixth Edition

12.8. Improved Editing Facilities

This section describes the features of vile that make simple text editing easier and more powerful.

12.8.1. Command-Line History and Completion

vile stores all your ex commands in a buffer named [History]. This feature is controlled with the history option, which is true by default. Turning it off disables the history feature and removes the [History] buffer. The command show-history will split the screen and display the [History] buffer in a new window.

Starting with vile 7.4, the colon command line is really a minibuffer. You can use it to recall lines from the [History] buffer and edit them.

You use the and keys to scroll backward and forward in the history, and and to move around within the line. Your current delete character (usually BACKSPACE) can be used to delete characters. Any other characters you type will be inserted at the current cursor postion.

You can toggle the minibuffer into vi mode by typing the mini-edit character (by default, ^G). When you do this, vile will highlight the minibuffer using the mechanism specified ...