!!Using __vi__ to Edit Text Files

Even the simplest administration tasks can be very difficult for technicians without UNIX experience.  The reason?  Editing a text file can be frustrating and time consuming if one has not yet been familiarized with an available text editor.  One of the most commonly used and available:  __vi__.  __vi__ is elegantly simple, but brutally non-intuitive.

As daunting as it may seem, there are just 10 key combination to remember when editing text files on a server via SSH.  Of course there are more for advanced functions... but you really only need these:

;(colon)q!:unconditionally quit (like when you really mess up and want to start over)
;Arrow keys:moves the cursor up, down, left, right (make sure you are not in INSERT mode!)
;i:enters INSERT mode, text typed will be placed at the cursor; press ESC to exit INSERT mode
;o:inserts a blank line after current line, enters INSERT mode; press ESC to exit INSERT mode
;A:jumps to the end of the current line to APPEND text to the line; press ESC to exit APPEND mode
;x:deletes the character at the cursor
;r''p'':replaces the character at the cursor with ''p''
;dd:deletes the entire line that the cursor is on
;(colon)/''something'':search for the next occurrence of ''something''
;ZZ:save changes and exit

__NOTE:__  As with everything in UNIX, the commands are case sensitive.

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