Capitalizing Sentences

Here is a quick way to search for some letters, and then capitalize them quickly. I wanted to capitalize all of the letters at that start a line. Here was my query:

:%s/^\(\w\)/\=toupper(submatch(0))/

I forget about Vim's submatching expression, which is extra handy for some of those tasks that just appear to be unavoidable monotony.

Arrow keys on the macbook pro

I used to have this exact problem when I used Linux on a Thinkpad several years ago. Try to use vim from the console, and the arrow keys simply don't work. There are a couple solutions to this problem, from what I understand, but I like this one b/c its simple and easy to apply on the fly whatever kind of terminal you find yourself in front of.

1. Lookup the key you want to override - :help terminal-options
   
2. Then type "set ~option~=~Control V~~press the key that doesn't work~"
3. The key is now overriden. To make it permanent, copy the command into your .vimrc (use : to view a buffer of all ex commands for easy copy/pasting).

This might sound a little complicated. Its not. Here is an example. Say that the 'up' arrow key doesn't do anything when you are in vim. No problem.

1. Type :help terminal-options --- Aha, I see a table and in that table it says that 't_ku' is the 'arrow up' key.
2. Type :set t_ku=~Ctrl-V~~up~ (where everything between ~s are the control V and then pushing the up key).
3. Tada, the up arrow key now works correctly.
   

Uncombobulating text

I keep forgetting about these two tips, or rather, I get them confused. To decode some stream of data that is encoded as ASCII you can goto vim.org and read up my tip on it. Basically, install a plugin, and then run a quick search replace. I actually wrote a coder/decoder so that I could whip up custom password bookmarklets easily.

The other format is base64. I forget that ascii is base16 and base64 is, well, base64 and so has 64 different characters rather than the cleaner 16. In any event, I found this great tip for decoding base64. Don't follow the tip instructions, scroll down to the last comment on the tip, and use it instead:

:ruby require "base64"
:.rubydo $_=Base64.decode64 $_