How can I move around in the Vim command line?

Question

If you\'re typing a command in Vim (I mean you\'ve started with : and you\'re working in the bar at the bottom of the screen) is there a way to move the cursor

Answer 1

Type

:h cmdline-editing

for details. I am listing a few of the interesting non-arrow commands that do something similar to what you want.

• ctrl-B: cursor to beginning of command-line
• ctrl-E: cursor to end of command-line
• ctrl-W: delete the word before the cursor
• ctrl-U: remove all characters between the cursor position and the beginning of the line

Answer 2

• ctrl+left arrow: move back a word
• ctrl+right arrow - move forward a word
• ctrl+b - back to the beginning of the line
• ctrl+e - go to the end of the line
• ctrl+w - remove one word before the cursor
• ctrl+u - remove line
• ctrl+f - if you need more editing power use ctrl+f and you will edit your command in normal mode. For example, if you want to move 5 characters to the left, use ctrl+f and then 5h.

Answer 3

Tap Ctrl+F while in command-line mode (just after :). There you'll get command-line window which could be edited&navigated as a regular vim window (hjkl etc.).

See :h cmdline-window for details.

Answer 4

nnoremap q; q: to facilitate typing. usr_20.txt and cmdline.txt contains all useful infos.

Answer 5

On Mac OS,

• Shift+left arrow: move back a word
• Shift+right arrow: move forward a word

Answer 6

To add to Maxim Kim's Answer,

In the Normal Mode ..

q: -> cmdline window for commands

q/ -> cmdline window for search forward

q? -> cmdline window for search backward

Ctrl-C or <CR> will take you out of cmdline-window