The VI nano-HOWTO for the NewbieDoc Project
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7. Miscellaneous Stuff

Undo: u to undo last command.
Inserting a file: :read file_name will insert file after current line. As a shortcut only :r file_name needs to be typed.
Info about current file: Ctrl-g will display info about the current file
Redraw screen: Ctrl-l will redraw the screen if it gets cluttered for some reason. This can happen, for example, if you are using vi over a poor quality dialup connection or you have a broken terminal emulator (such using Windows telnet).
Line numbers: :set nu to display line numbers and :set nonu to not display them.
To paste text without problems: :set paste
Useful Stuff For Writing Code or Newbiedoc HOW-TOs
:set expandtab softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4
Always leave tabstop set to 8. This is the rule, and it is best not to break it. If you set your tabstop to something different, then when you read something written by someone else it won't line up right and vice versa when someone else tries to read something you wrote. Instead, set softtabstop and shiftwidth and vi(m) will behave as if you had set tabstop without violating the "1 tab == 8 spaces" rule. If you use only these 2 options vi will insert any combination of tabs and spaces to meet your indentation specification. The expandtab option instructs vi to always insert spaces and never tabs. Using this option you can avoid the problems associated with using tabs because spaces are always interpreted properly by all text processors. The command above can be abbreviated as :set et sts=4 sw=4 . The indentation level you use is up to you, but I prefer a 4-space indent.
Get Additional Information About A Command :help <command> Will display the on-line help document for the specified command. If no command is given, then the Table Of Contents is displayed.

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