Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Edit Commands

Recall that c, d, and y are the basic editing operators.

Inserting New Text

Command	Action
a	Append after cursor.
A	Append to end of line.
i	Insert before cursor.
I	Insert at first nonblank character of line.
gI	Insert at beginning of line. (vim)
o	Open a line below cursor.
O	Open a line above cursor.
Esc	Terminate insert mode.

The following commands work in insert mode.

Command	Action
Tab	Insert a tab.
Backspace	Delete previous character.
Ctrl-E	Insert character found just below cursor. (vim)
Ctrl-Y	Insert character found just above cursor. (vim)
Ctrl-H	Delete previous character (same as Backspace).
Delete	Delete current character.
Ctrl-W	Delete previous word. (vim)
Ctrl-A	Repeat last insertion. (vim)
Ctrl-I	Insert a tab.
Ctrl-N	Insert next completion of the pattern to the left of the cursor. (vim)
Ctrl-P	Insert previous completion of the pattern to the left of the cursor. (vim)
Ctrl-T	Shift line right to next shift width. (vim)
Ctrl-D	Shift line left to previous shift width. (vim)
Ctrl-U	Delete current line.
Ctrl-V	Insert next character verbatim.
Ctrl-[	Terminate insert mode.

Some of the control characters listed in the previous table are set by stty. Your terminal settings may differ.

Changing and Deleting Text

The following table isn’t exhaustive but illustrates the most common operations.

Command	Action
cw	Change through end of current word.
cc	Change line.
c$	Change text from current position to end of ...