A Visual Walkthrough of New Features in Vim 7.0

An anonymous reader writes "Anybody who has used Linux or any other OS would be aware of the very powerful and feature rich text editor Vi. This interesting article takes a visual look at some of the new features in the latest version of Vim 7.0 — a Vi clone created by Bram Moolenaar. From the article: 'Just for once, I wouldn't mind siding with the beast if that is what it takes to use Vi. The modern avatar of Vi is Vim — the free editor created by Bram Moolenaar. Riding from strength to strength, this editor in its 7th version is a powerhouse as far as an editor is concerned. When ever I use Vim (or GVim for that matter), it gives me the impression of the Beauty and the Beast.'"

Comments

Default mode

[jez9999]

Does Vim still default to starting in command mode? I suppose it does. For me, this is the biggest damn problem with it. It's a text editor, it should start in insert mode like every other editor. Pressing some key to start typing is bloody annoying, then pressing Esc to insert commands is also annoying. Ctrl-sequences are much better, and the default insert mode means I can do simple text editing and slowly learn other commands of the editor. To be honest, I also find Vim's shortcuts extremely unintuative. Want to go to the end of the document? 99% of editors, Ctrl-end. Vim, G. Sorry, that's retarded. Maybe it's based in the days of legacy terminals that didn't have arrow keys or even control sequences, but we're not in those days anymore; it's the text editor equivalent of still using a green-on-black text-only monitor.