There are plenty of cheat sheets online. The main thing is understanding that there are different modes, knowing what they do, and how to switch between them and issue commands.

[–] akkajdh999@programming.dev 11 points 10 hours ago

Pro Tip: to learn to do something, practice doing it

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

I became a fan after I got used to nice color schemes, buffers/tabs, horizontal/vertical splitting, file browsing with NERDTree and highlighting changes with GITGutter.

You ask for tips? Add VIM commands you use regularly (like paste mode toggle for example) to a keyboard shortcut (like leader key + p) in your .vimrc settings file. It increases working speed.
Also add some plugins, they are fun and add useful functions from other editors like Sublime (ctrl-p, vim-multiple-cursors).

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 18 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Just get used to

using movement (hjkl),
going between insert and normal modes (i and esc),
undoing (u from normal mode),
and saving (:w and :wq).

Don't try to do it all at first, just get comfortable with the essentials. You can even just stay in insert mode (the only mode in most editors) at first.

Keep a vim basics cheat sheet handy for a couple weeks as you're building in muscle memory, then slowly work in more advanced techniques and combinations.

It doesn't take long before you start having a lot of fun just manipulating text.

PS here's a decently basic cheat sheet I found: image describing basic vim keyboard bindings and commands

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

I always forget about :wq, mainly because escing out of interactive mode and hitting ZZ is so much quicker.

[–] TechieDamien@lemmy.ml 6 points 15 hours ago

Go through the tutorial. It is quite good and teaches things incrementally with real world examples. Just run vimtutor to start.