Vim Modes

Standard text editors map most keystrokes directly to characters on screen. Vim is a modal editor where keystrokes have different meanings depending on the current mode. This design allows efficient keyboard-driven editing without modifier keys, but requires learning mode switching.

Vim uses modal editing — different keystrokes do different things depending on the current mode. The main modes are Normal (for commands), Insert (for typing), and Visual (for selection).

• Normal mode: Default mode. Keystrokes are commands (move, delete, yank, etc.). Press ESC to return here from other modes.
• Insert mode: Type characters literally. Press i from Normal to enter, ESC to exit.
• Visual mode: Select text for operations. Enter with v (character-wise), V (line-wise), or <C-v> (block-wise).

Key mappings:

• Vim starts in Normal mode by default
• Mode switching is explicit — no hold-to-edit like Ctrl in conventional editors
• Visual mode has three variants: character, line, and block
• : 进入 Ex 命令行 mode (also considered a mode)

• Accidental key presses in Normal mode can cause unintended edits (e.g., i in the middle of a word inserts before it, not split it — use s or a instead)
• Caps Lock matters: i is insert, I is different command
• :help mode shows current mode help

• Survival Commands — Five commands that work in Normal mode
• Text Objects — Selection commands that require Visual mode
• Visual Selection — Modes for selecting text blocks
• Macros — Recording in Normal mode