How can I move around in the Vim command line?

Question

If you're typing a command in Vim (I mean you've started with : and you're working in the bar at the bottom of the screen) is there a way to move the cursor around other than tapping the arrow keys? In particular, can you move it to the beginning, end, back n characters, or back one word?

Answer 1

Tap Ctrl+F while in command-line mode (just after :). There you'll get command-line window which could be edited&navigated as a regular vim window (hjkl etc.).

See :h cmdline-window for details.

Answer 2

Type

:h cmdline-editing

for details. I am listing a few of the interesting non-arrow commands that do something similar to what you want.

• ctrl-B: cursor to beginning of command-line
• ctrl-E: cursor to end of command-line
• ctrl-W: delete the word before the cursor
• ctrl-U: remove all characters between the cursor position and the beginning of the line