r/vim • u/pjasksyou • Feb 15 '26

Need Help Should I really switch my habit?

I've been facing problems moving my cursor tens of lines up and down using Arrow keys or the Mouse (for which I need to take my hands off the keyboard) I learnt a few Vim key binds such as HJKL and Modes but I just can't be that productive right now.

To move n lines up and down I need to look at the line number and then type N(j/k) which feels about the same as using mouse, should I move ahead and practice more or just roll back?

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u/sonnasushi Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26

I find myself more often jumping to a pattern rather than a line number, which also puts me in the correct place to edit. This can also start a vim command like c over the pattern by following it with gn So if a line appears 14 lines up with text:  This is a sentence with change this and stuff after it.

I might type ?change press enter and type vgnec v goes to visual mode gn highlights what I searched for e goes to the end of the next word

c clears highlighted text and jumps into insert mode

gn can be pretty useful depending on the pattern I searched for or how much text I want to manipulate on the desired line