Vimulator

Vimulator is a Vim simulator for teaching and demonstrating Vim. It has a subset of normal mode commands, and an insert mode.

Try it out and run the tests online.

Supported commands

Motions

• h: Move left
• j: Move down
• k: Move up
• l: Move right
• 0: Move to the start of the line (before leading whitespace)
• ^: Move to the start of the line (after leading whitespace)
• $: Move to the end of the line
• w: Move to the next word
• W: Move to the next WORD
• e: Move to the next word ending
• E: Move to the next WORD ending
• b: Move back to the previous word
• B: Move back to the previous WORD
• gg: Move to the first line of the file (or a specific line, if a count is given)
• G: Move to the last line of the file (or a specific line, if a count is given)
• + or Return: Move to the start of the next line (after leading whitespace)
• -: Move to the start of the previous line (after leading whitespace)

Document search

• /: Search forwards
• ?: Search backwards
• n: Go to the next match for the latest search
• N: Go to the previous match for the latest search

Marks

• m: Create a mark
• `: Move to a given mark
• ': Move to the line containing a given mark

Insertion

• a: Append text after the cursor
• A: Append text at the end of the line
• i: Insert text before the cursor
• I: Insert text at the start of the line (after leading whitespace)
• gI: Insert text at the start of the line (before leading whitespace)
• o: Open the next line
• O: Open the previous line
• s: Substitute characters under the cursor
• S: Substitute to the end of the line

Operators

• c, cc and C: Change text
• d, dd and D: Delete text

Operators work with all of the motions and document search commands listed above, and the following text objects:

• i or a followed by b, ( or ): Inside or around parenthesis
• i or a followed by B, { or }: Inside or around braces
• i or a followed by [ or ]: Inside or around square brackets

Line search

• f: Find the next occurrence of a character
• F: Find the previous occurrence of a character
• t: Find the character before the next occurrence of a character
• T: Find the character after the previous ocurrence of a character
• ;: Repeat the last line search
• ,: Repeat the last line search, reversing the direction

Edits

• r: Replace the character under the cursor
• x: Delete the character under the cursor
• X: Delete the character before the cursor
• .: Repeat the last edit or operator

Yank and put

• yy or Y: Yank the current line
• p: Put the most recently yanked line after the current line
• P: Put the most recently yanked line before the current line

License

Vimulator is licensed under the MIT license.