The web is a brilliant place for learning new things and finding out information on any topic you wish. If you want to learn something you merely have to search for it online and you’ll more than likely find a guide on how to do it, within seconds, never mind minutes. Somethings require practice though. Just for an example lets take riding a bike, yes sure you can read a guide online covering the steps, though to be truly able to say you can ride a bike its recommended to actually get up on a bike and have a go!
Its the same with Vim. Vim is a text editor used most in Unix-based operating systems, and at first glance it looks to be something that should have been forgotten about in the computing world, long ago. Even after some time and effort trying to use Vim, its learning curve may still seem incredibly steep. Reading books or guides on something like this might help you find your way around, or at even give you a glimpse of why Vim is still so useful today, but as with reading about how to ride a bike will only get you so far. You need to jump in and go for a ride with it, so to speak. Today we’re going to see how you can do that with Open Vim – a web app with the sole purpose of teaching you how to use Vim.
What is so good about Vim?
As mentioned before, Vim is a popular text editor used most in Unix-based operating systems. It originally started on the Amiga, but today can run on almost any computing platform. Vim doesn’t use menus, instead all inputs are through keyboard commands, once you are comfortable with Vim it can prove to be an efficient means of working your way around a text file, though as its such a different type of program than to what most of us are used to it can be scary. Vim has been around since 1991 and is based on vi, a text editor from Unix which was first created in 1978, yes that long ago! Vim builds on its use of keyboard commands for speed efficiency. Another reason for Vim’s power is the amount of customization that can be
How Open Vim Helps
Open Vim guides you through what to do to get started with Vim. It does this by first giving a quick explanation of how to carry out each section, and then forcing you to try each section out straight away. Having to carry out each step really helps you take in what to do, and even helps remembering how to do it! Open Vim provides a walk through of Vim, with a built-in Vim right on site for you to use.
Tutorial
Thia is where you do your learning. The interactive tutorial introduces you to the basics of Vim which are quite useful and are built on through other mode advanced uses of Vim so they’re pretty important! The tutorial is divided into 21 different sections ranging from how to switch between inset and command mode, and repeating commands with a dot (a .). It carries you through these fundamental sections by first explaining what you’ll be attempting and how to do it, and then asking you to carry out the action you’re learning.
Open Vim tutorial
It highlights the key you’re required to press each time on its onscreen keyboard which I found quite useful. Though I have found it each to stop reading the tutorial text and just watch what key is required to press. Though mainly my fault when this happened I cant help but thing the highlighted key stand out too much and the text of the tutorial is too hard to read! This is down to the design of the user interface which though a small enough problem I do think it would be worth fixing.
Sandbox
It’s here in the Sandbox where you practice what you’re learning. This is an online text editor sandbox where you can try out the different commands of Vim that you’re learning without breaking anything! The context menu appears on the right hand side so if you forget how to carry out a certain command hopefully it’ll help you remember.
Here's where you practice!
In the Sandbox there is no on-screen keyboard, just the Vim screen – which is all that’s needed! This section is pretty useful for messing about with Vim. Best of all, if you mess up, you merely have to reload the page and you’re good to go again!
Theres also the Two Sandboxes section to the site, this section as the title suggestions has two instances of Vim, once you’re starting to master the art of Vim more you can come here and experiment with Vim testing out different command and ways of editing and compare to the other. Though not so useful this section is really only here for showcasing that two instances of Vim can run on the one page. We may as well make use of it if we can though!
Interface
While it isn’t the best looking site I’ve used, its layout and positioning of each required element is great. Much like Vim it doesn’t have a world-class design, just a basic working design. Which is all that’s needed! Anything more might risk distracting the user from the important parts – learning! The way the text in the tutorial fades in as if its being typed is a nice touch, though I find it distracting, an option to turn this off would be great. It reminds me too much of those terrible Power Point presentations that started of each slide with text flying about the screen! Not classy at all, and open Vim, just like Vim – is classy.
The "laptop" view
As I mentioned under when talking about the tutorial I do think the design needs rejigged to solve this, the overall all its brilliant, this is just small flaw. Though people using this app should be interested enough to not get distracted my flashing lights!
There is also a 3D option for the onscreen laptop. The laptop doesn’t look like much of a laptop in 2D mode but in 3D mode you’ll see that it really is a laptop, it’s a screen with a keyboard. That said, it can be somewhat odd to see a 3D representation of a laptop on your laptop’s screen in a browser, but to each his own.
Conclusion
Some people might be wondering why Vim still deserves a place in today’s world of the web, with web apps for nearly anything we can imagine and fancy interfaces galore. While I agree with the facts, there’s still a need for the nitty gritty code editing that keeps our fancy sites and apps running. Behind every website there is a server, a server run by a Sysadmin who more than likely might use something like Vim on a daily basis to help improve his work flow.
I think its awesome that a web site such as Open Vim using the modern technologies of the web – HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript can help people enter the world of the older technologies by teaching people how to use them! It does so in a simple yet effective way which I believe more web apps could do. Open Vim is a great example of how web apps can be used for training, even for traditional desktop apps.