!!command_name optional_arguments ENTER

Explanation follows:

Let’s say you want to run some UNIX command and have it’s output brought into the file you’re currently editing. This is a pretty common and useful technique when programming. For example, if you’re writing an app that uses a database, you may often want to refer to the current database schema – the definitions of the tables and columns in the DB. Also, it would be convenient to have the schema available as part of the current file you’re editing. And of course, the schema is subject to change now and then as the project goes on. So if you were to use a saved schema report generated by the appropriate SQL command or script, it could be outdated. What you would like is for the schema-reporting script to be run and its output – the current schema – to be inserted into your file, maybe between comment delimiters. That way, you can refer to it while coding.
[ And at the end of your editing session, you could easily delete it from your code by deleting everything between those comment delimiters. ]

To enable that, just do this – move the cursor to a blank line in the file, where you want that output to appear. You could insert comment delimiters above and below that line if you wish. Then do this:

!!schema-reporting-script-name optional_arguments ENTER

That’s a double exclamation mark at the start of the above command.
This results in vim spawning a shell, the shell runs that schema command, then vim pulls in the output of the command, which REPLACES the blank line that the cursor was on.

There are more advanced versions of this one – which are even more powerful for programming – such as, having that output replace, not just the single blank like, but any range of lines in the file you choose it to. Of course, you can also have the output appended to the file, or inserted at the beginning of the file.

However, I won’t go into those examples right now for lack of time. But if you want to know it, check out the !! command in the vim help.

- Vasudev

Here is another beginner’s vi tutorial, which I wrote a while ago for Linux For You magazine. It’s for vi, the predecessor of vim, but almost everything in it is still current, and relevant to vim (possibly the only exception is the reference to vedit, an easier mode for vi.

It might be one of the shortest vi tutorials around, so is good for getting up to speed with vi basics in a short while. Some Windows system administrator friends told me it helped them learn vi basics pretty soon.

- Vasudev

Now if Eclipse had a vim editor, that would rock. This looks to be heading in the right direction though: http://eclim.sourceforge.net/

The vimtutor is golden. I used to be just like you. I used to use nano and would try to force myself to use vim. When I needed to make a quick change in a config file I said to myself, “I’m just gonna use nano… next time I’ll use Vim.” You should try to do a project in nothing but Vim.

@Srikanth,

Glad I could help! Like I said people use different commands than others. I am always finding new shortcuts. The best thing is that you can slowly add more commands to your arsenal.