VI shortcuts Fasttrack

Let me summarize here with few vi commands for Fast reference:

Inserting text

esc + i                 insert text informant of the cursor
esc + a                 append text after the existing text
esc + O                 opens new line above the current line
esc + o                 opens new line under current line (insert mode)

Deleting text

esc + x                 deletes one character
esc + 5x                deletes five charters
esc + dw                deletes a word
esc + 5dw               deletes five words
esc + dd                deletes the whole line
esc + D   deletes the line from cursor and forward
esc + d)                deletes the sentence from cursor and forward
esc + d(                deletes the sentence from cursor and backwards
esc + u                 undelete

Note: esc + d) or d( removes the sentence from cursor and forward/backwards
until it reaches a dot "."

Moving around in VI:

Make sure you are in command mode and the following letters will do:

j               moves you down
k               moves you up
h               moves you left
l               moves you right

Finding Text

Hit esc then type in a / you then go to the bottom of the screen
where you will see your / type in the text to look for.
ie. /Linux
that will find the word `Linux` in the open file.

Replacing Text

Hit esc and do: :start,stop,s/s_text/r_text/g

:               indicates that this is an ex command
start           is the starting line number
stop            is the stopping point
s               is the substitute command
s_text          is the search string (the text you are looking for )
r_text          is the text you are replacing with
g               is global  

Example:

Esc + :5,8,s/l/ll/g

This would replace all "l"'s with "ll" on lines 5 to 8.

Note to Replacing Text:
Line numbers can also be:
.  current line
$  last line

Basic save & quit commands

Hit Esc and do a : where after you can type the commands.

w  write (save)
q  quit
!  force

ie. :q!  or  :wq

To create control characters do:

Ctrl+V Ctrl+

Example:

Ctrl+V Ctrl+A

That will create a ^A character.

(These last 3 commands are very alike ed commands)

Another useful thing in VI is split-screen mode, so you can edit 2 files
at once, this is:

:split

Just press Esc and type ":split".