Vim's Ladder

finding-vim-help.md

Take the following steps to get the Vim help you need:

• If you're having trouble with a plugin, read its README first to make sure you have installed any dependencies and configured it correctly.

• :help topic <= will jump to topic within the manual.

• :helpgrep pattern <= will search for all occurrences of pattern throughout the manual.

  Use :cope to open the quickfix window of search results.

• There is a decent FAQ

• The #vim freenode IRC channel has a fact bot called vimgor with answers to common problems.

    /msg vimgor filetype
  

  will show the information behind the fact filetype.

  For searching, vimgor supports a listfacts command which returns all known facts containing the given term, e.g:

    /msg vimgor listfacts file
  

  will list all known facts containing file.

  You should explore vimgor using either /msg or /query to limit interference on the #vim channel.

  Feel free to call upon vimgor directly from within #vim if you are using it to answer someone else’s question.

  Here are some additional tools in that vein:

  • ;help topic ⇐ will provide a URL to Vim’s manual for the given topic.
  • ;man topic ⇐ will provide a URL to the unix man page for the given topic.

• Sometimes googling works; stackoverflow too.

• Ask on #vim or reddit/vim

  Use a pastebin for more than about 3 lines of data in an example on #vim.

  The format of your pastebin is important. Here is an excellent example

  Describe:

  1. What you want to achieve
  2. Samples of your original data/text
  3. The outcome you would like
  4. What you have tried
  5. The output of: :set magic? gdefault? (where the ? in those commands is essential)

  Play nice: Patience & courtesy yields better results, faster.

Taken from the more verbose help-us-help-you