Vim's surround plugin usage

Question

I just downloaded vim today.

The surround plugin documentation says:

Press cs"' inside "Hello world!" to change it to 'Hello world!'.

But where am I supposed to press cs"' and in which mode?

Answer 1

Just downloaded vim? You've made the right choice!

Vim has several modes.

Insert mode is what you use to actually type text. It is not what you use to move around the document ( in vim terms, the 'buffer' ).

After you have typed "Hello world":

hit ESC to go to Command mode.

use the 'hjkl' keys to move the cursor inside the quotes.

then type cs"' to Change Surrounds from " to '

Vim's online help is excellent.

In Command mode, type :help surround to get the help for the plugin

if you see nothing doing that, first try :help helptags , which will tell you how to setup the help files ( surround plugin also has excellent help )