Vim: Modes

Vim has seven basic modes:

• Normal mode: In Normal mode you can enter all the normal editor commands. This is also known as command mode (not to be confused with Command-line mode).
• Visual mode: Like Normal mode, but the movement commands extend a highlighted area. When a non-movement command is issued, it is executed for the highlighted area.
• Select mode: I have no idea what this one is about.
• Insert mode: In insert mode, the text you type is inserted into the buffer.
• Command-line mode: In Command-line mode you can enter one line of text at the bottom on the window. This is also known as Cmdline mode. It is used for:
  • the Ex command :
  • the pattern search commands, ? and /
  • and the filter command !
• Ex mode:
• Terminal-Job mode:

And there are seven additional modes (which are variants of the basic modes):

• Operator-pending mode:
• Replace mode:
• Virtual Replace mode:
• Insert Normal mode: Entered when c+O is entered in Insert mode. This is like Normal mode, but after executing one command Vim returns to Insert mode. If the showmode option is on -- (insert) -- is shown at the bottom of the window.
• Terminal-Normal mode:
• Insert Visual mode:
• Insert Select Mode:

Resources

There is a lot of not-quite-accurate information about Vim modes floating around the Internet. It’s not so much wrong as incomplete and this is one area where I think completeness really helps.

So I turned to Vim’s own help, :help vim-modes. What follows, more or less, is me paraphrasing Vim’s help pages on modes.