usr_09.txt (10358B)
1 *usr_09.txt* Nvim 2 3 4 VIM USER MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar 5 6 7 Using the GUI 8 9 10 Vim works in an ordinary terminal, while gVim has a Graphical User Interface 11 (GUI). It can do the same things and a few more. The GUI offers menus, a 12 toolbar, scrollbars and other items. This chapter is about these extra things 13 that the GUI offers. 14 15 |09.1| Parts of the GUI 16 |09.2| Using the mouse 17 |09.3| The clipboard 18 |09.4| Select mode 19 20 Next chapter: |usr_10.txt| Making big changes 21 Previous chapter: |usr_08.txt| Splitting windows 22 Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt| 23 24 ============================================================================== 25 *09.1* Parts of the GUI 26 27 You might have an icon on your desktop that starts gvim. Otherwise, one of 28 these commands should do it: > 29 30 gvim file.txt 31 vim -g file.txt 32 33 If this doesn't work you don't have a version of Vim with GUI support. You 34 will have to install one first. 35 Vim will open a window and display "file.txt" in it. What the window looks 36 like depends on the version of Vim. It should resemble the following picture 37 (for as far as this can be shown in ASCII!). 38 39 +----------------------------------------------------+ 40 | file.txt + (~/dir) - VIM X | <- window title 41 +----------------------------------------------------+ 42 | File Edit Tools Syntax Buffers Window Help | <- menubar 43 +----------------------------------------------------+ 44 | aaa bbb ccc ddd eee fff ggg hhh iii jjj | <- toolbar 45 | aaa bbb ccc ddd eee fff ggg hhh iii jjj | 46 +----------------------------------------------------+ 47 | file text | ^ | 48 | ~ | # | 49 | ~ | # | <- scrollbar 50 | ~ | # | 51 | ~ | # | 52 | ~ | # | 53 | | V | 54 +----------------------------------------------------+ 55 56 The largest space is occupied by the file text. This shows the file in the 57 same way as in a terminal. With some different colors and another font 58 perhaps. 59 60 61 THE WINDOW TITLE 62 63 At the very top is the window title. This is drawn by your window system. 64 Vim will set the title to show the name of the current file. First comes the 65 name of the file. Then some special characters and the directory of the file 66 in parens. These special characters can be present: 67 68 • - The file cannot be modified (e.g., a help file) 69 • + The file contains changes 70 • = The file is read-only 71 • =+ The file is read-only, contains changes anyway 72 73 If nothing is shown you have an ordinary, unchanged file. 74 75 76 THE MENUBAR 77 78 You know how menus work, right? Vim has the usual items, plus a few more. 79 Browse them to get an idea of what you can use them for. A relevant submenu 80 is Edit/Global Settings. You will find these entries: 81 82 Toggle Toolbar make the toolbar appear/disappear 83 Toggle Bottom Scrollbar make a scrollbar appear/disappear at the bottom 84 Toggle Left Scrollbar make a scrollbar appear/disappear at the left 85 Toggle Right Scrollbar make a scrollbar appear/disappear at the right 86 87 88 THE TOOLBAR 89 90 This contains icons for the most often used actions. Hopefully the icons are 91 self-explanatory. There are tooltips to get an extra hint (move the mouse 92 pointer to the icon without clicking and don't move it for a second). 93 94 The "Edit/Global Settings/Toggle Toolbar" menu item can be used to make the 95 toolbar disappear. If you never want a toolbar, use this command in your 96 vimrc file: > 97 98 :set guioptions-=T 99 100 This removes the 'T' flag from the 'guioptions' option. Other parts of the 101 GUI can also be enabled or disabled with this option. See the help for it. 102 103 104 THE SCROLLBARS 105 106 By default there is one scrollbar on the right. It does the obvious thing. 107 When you split the window, each window will get its own scrollbar. 108 You can make a horizontal scrollbar appear with the menu item 109 Edit/Global Settings/Toggle Bottom Scrollbar. This is useful in diff mode, or 110 when the 'wrap' option has been reset (more about that later). 111 112 When there are vertically split windows, only the windows on the right side 113 will have a scrollbar. However, when you move the cursor to a window on the 114 left, it will be this one that the scrollbar controls. This takes a bit of 115 time to get used to. 116 When you work with vertically split windows, consider adding a scrollbar on 117 the left. This can be done with a menu item, or with the 'guioptions' option: 118 > 119 :set guioptions+=l 120 121 This adds the 'l' flag to 'guioptions'. 122 123 ============================================================================== 124 *09.2* Using the mouse 125 126 Standards are wonderful. In Microsoft Windows, you can use the mouse to 127 select text in a standard manner. The X Window system also has a standard 128 system for using the mouse. Unfortunately, these two standards are not the 129 same. Fortunately, you can customize Vim. 130 131 The following commands makes the mouse work more like a Microsoft Windows 132 mouse: > 133 134 set selection=exclusive 135 set selectmode=mouse,key 136 set keymodel=startsel,stopsel 137 138 The mouse can be further tuned. Check out these options if you want to change 139 the way how the mouse works: 140 141 'mouse' in which mode the mouse is used by Vim 142 'mousemodel' what effect a mouse click has 143 'mousetime' time between clicks for a double-click 144 'mousehide' hide the mouse while typing 145 'selectmode' whether the mouse starts Visual or Select mode 146 147 ============================================================================== 148 *09.3* The clipboard 149 150 In section |04.7| the basic use of the clipboard was explained. There is one 151 essential thing to explain about X-windows: There are actually two places to 152 exchange text between programs. MS-Windows doesn't have this. 153 154 In X-Windows there is the "current selection". This is the text that is 155 currently highlighted. In Vim this is the Visual area (this assumes you are 156 using the default option settings). You can paste this selection in another 157 application without any further action. 158 For example, in this text select a few words with the mouse. Vim will 159 switch to Visual mode and highlight the text. Now start another gvim, without 160 a file name argument, so that it displays an empty window. Click the middle 161 mouse button. The selected text will be inserted. 162 163 The "current selection" will only remain valid until some other text is 164 selected. After doing the paste in the other gvim, now select some characters 165 in that window. You will notice that the words that were previously selected 166 in the other gvim window are displayed differently. This means that it no 167 longer is the current selection. 168 169 You don't need to select text with the mouse, using the keyboard commands for 170 Visual mode works just as well. 171 172 173 THE REAL CLIPBOARD 174 175 Now for the other place with which text can be exchanged. We call this the 176 "real clipboard", to avoid confusion. Often both the "current selection" and 177 the "real clipboard" are called clipboard, you'll have to get used to that. 178 To put text on the real clipboard, select a few different words in one of 179 the gvims you have running. Then use the Edit/Copy menu entry. Now the text 180 has been copied to the real clipboard. You can't see this, unless you have 181 some application that shows the clipboard contents (e.g., KDE's Klipper). 182 Now select the other gvim, position the cursor somewhere and use the 183 Edit/Paste menu. You will see the text from the real clipboard is inserted. 184 185 186 USING BOTH 187 188 This use of both the "current selection" and the "real clipboard" might sound 189 a bit confusing. But it is very useful. Let's show this with an example. 190 Use one gvim with a text file and perform these actions: 191 192 - Select two words in Visual mode. 193 - Use the Edit/Copy menu to get these words onto the clipboard. 194 - Select one other word in Visual mode. 195 - Use the Edit/Paste menu item. What will happen is that the single selected 196 word is replaced with the two words from the clipboard. 197 - Move the mouse pointer somewhere else and click the middle button. You 198 will see that the word you just overwrote with the clipboard is inserted 199 here. 200 201 If you use the "current selection" and the "real clipboard" with care, you can 202 do a lot of useful editing with them. 203 204 205 USING THE KEYBOARD 206 207 If you don't like using the mouse, you can access the current selection and 208 the real clipboard with two registers. The "* register is for the current 209 selection. 210 To make text become the current selection, use Visual mode. For example, 211 to select a whole line just press "V". 212 To insert the current selection before the cursor: > 213 214 "*P 215 216 Notice the uppercase "P". The lowercase "p" puts the text after the cursor. 217 218 The "+ register is used for the real clipboard. For example, to copy the text 219 from the cursor position until the end of the line to the clipboard: > 220 221 "+y$ 222 223 Remember, "y" is yank, which is Vim's copy command. 224 To insert the contents of the real clipboard before the cursor: > 225 226 "+P 227 228 It's the same as for the current selection, but uses the plus (+) register 229 instead of the star "*" register. 230 231 ============================================================================== 232 *09.4* Select mode 233 234 And now something that is used more often on MS-Windows than on X-Windows. 235 But both can do it. You already know about Visual mode. Select mode is like 236 Visual mode, because it is also used to select text. But there is an obvious 237 difference: When typing text, the selected text is deleted and the typed text 238 replaces it. 239 240 To start working with Select mode, you must first enable it (for MS-Windows 241 it is probably already enabled, but you can do this anyway): > 242 243 :set selectmode+=mouse 244 245 Now use the mouse to select some text. It is highlighted like in Visual mode. 246 Now press a letter. The selected text is deleted, and the single letter 247 replaces it. You are in Insert mode now, thus you can continue typing. 248 249 Since typing normal text causes the selected text to be deleted, you can not 250 use the normal movement commands "hjkl", "w", etc. Instead, use the shifted 251 function keys. <S-Left> (shifted cursor left key) moves the cursor left. The 252 selected text is changed like in Visual mode. The other shifted cursor keys 253 do what you expect. <S-End> and <S-Home> also work. 254 255 You can tune the way Select mode works with the 'selectmode' option. 256 257 ============================================================================== 258 259 Next chapter: |usr_10.txt| Making big changes 260 261 Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: