notes

Ranger tips:

  1. Type S while in a particular directory in ranger to cd into that directory
  2. zh for toggling hidden files
  3. cw to rename file under cursor
  4. dD<Enter> to delete file under cursor
  5. For more, visit here

Donot step on your own foot techniques:

  1. Install packages wisely. All package binaries installed by pacman go into /usr/bin. All packages installed by other means should(must?) go into /usr/local/bin. Otherwise, a package installed in usr/bin by sources other than pacman would give trouble when you sync/upgrade packages with pacman later on.

Display Keystrokes on Screen:

  1. Install Screenkey and slop.

  2. Run slop -n -g '%g'. A crosshair should appear. Using that crosshair, select the area in which you want Screenkey to display the keystrokes. Get the geometry data(eg:778x81+514+983%).

  3. Now run Screenkey with these data : screenkey -p fixed -g <geometry data>. In my case, its screenkey -p fixed -g 744x67+623+1010.

Pro Tip: Use a Keybinding manager like XBindkeys to bind these commands to specific keypresses. Gnome comes with an inbuilt Keybinding Shortcut manager(Under Settings>Keyboard>Shortcut). Donot forget to map a kill switch for Screenkey(Otherwise you will have multiple overlaying instances which can be annoying)

I have mapped <F10> to screenkey -p fixed -g 744x67+623+1010 and <F9> to pkill -f screenkey.

Want to change fonts? , Run screenkey --show-settings and configure the settings accordingly. It has an inbuilt area-selector but the disadvantage of using it is that if you map this command to a keypress, then you need to select the area every time you press that key.

Use buffers and bookmarks in vim.

Buffers can be created easily by opening a file in vim using telescope/nerdtree or by just :e file. You can list all buffers using :ls and to switch to a particular buffer, just :b<buffer no.>. Alternatively, after installing telescope, you can map :Telescope buffer to <leader>fb to get a quick and interactive access to all the buffers. Pro tip : Map C-l to :bn(buffer-next) and C-h to :bp(buffer-previous) to get super fast buffer toggling.

Bookmarks can be created to mark specific points in a codebase to fast toggle between them. Bookmarks can be made by m<character> in normal mode to bookmark that point with the id as <character>. To list all bookmarks, :marks can be used. To move to a specific bookmark, '<character>(tick character) can be used. Also use the plugin vim-bookmarks for better bookmark switching. See usage

Use surround.vim for super fast editing

Keys:

y(yank); s(surround); i(in); w(word); d(delete); c(change); t(tag); a(around);

Examples
  1. Hello –ysiw" (yank surround in word with “) —> “Hello”
  2. Hello –ysiw* (yank surround in word with *) —> Hello
  3. “hello world” –cs") change surround " with ) ——-> (hello world)
  4. “hello world” –cs"<q> change surround " with tag —> hello world
  5. hello world –cst" change surround tag —> “hello world”
  6. “hello world” –ds" delete surround " ———-> hello world

Multiple words surround(using Visual mode)

Go in visual mode and select the words which you want to surround. Then use S<surround character> to surround the words with that character.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing

With cursor on L, ys2aw" (yank surround 2 around words with “) => “Lorem Ipsum” is simply dummy text of the printing