Mastering Vim

Command-line and ex modes

Command-line mode is entered by typing a colon (:) or when searching for text with / or ?, and allows you to input a command until you hit Enter. Command-line mode provides some useful shortcuts:

• The up and down arrows (or Ctrl + p and Ctrl + n) let you traverse command history one by one
• Ctrl + b and Ctrl + e let you go to the beginning and the end of the line respectively
• The Shift or Ctrl keys combined with left or right arrows allows you to move by words

A highly useful shortcut is Ctrl + f, which opens an editable command-line window with a history of the commands you ran:

For editing purposes, it's a regular ...