If you're curious, Emacs does all this—and more—with various C-h commands. If you want to see a full list of these, start with<p><pre><code> C-h ?
</code></pre>
Here are my favorites:<p>If you want to see a specific keybinding, like checking what C-w is bound to:<p><pre><code> C-h k C-w
</code></pre>
If you want to see the documentation for a function:<p><pre><code> C-h f function-name
</code></pre>
If you want to see details about your current mode:<p><pre><code> C-h m
</code></pre>
This is incredibly useful because it lists all the mode-specific keybindings. That's how I learn how to use new modes!<p>If you want to see or interact with a variable:<p><pre><code> C-h v
</code></pre>
If you want to see <i>something</i> where you remember just part of the name:<p><pre><code> C-h a *regexp*
</code></pre>
(a stands for "apropos")<p>If you want to see the incredibly detailed manual for Emacs or all of the info manuals on your computer:<p><pre><code> C-h r
C-h i
</code></pre>
If you want to see info about your input mode (how do I type ℕ in TeX-input-mode?):<p><pre><code> C-h I
</code></pre>
Actually, for that one, I have another handy trick: copy and paste an ℕ into your buffer, go over it and use<p><pre><code> C-u C-x =
</code></pre>
which brings up detailed information about the given character... including how to type it in your current input mode (if applicable). This also includes useful info like its Unicode designation and category.<p>I've found all of these tricks exceptionally helpful when learning more about Emacs. They also help me overcome my fear of memorization: its so easy to look stuff up, I don't have to bother. Then, if I use something enough, I remember it without especially effort. It's like a cache in my mind.
I think if the idea is to help newcomers with Vim, this is the wrong approach. Nobody tries to learn something new by checking out what a random key does, using :help X. When I was trying to learn Vim, the most useful info was actually search results for "how to do X with Vim", because everybody knows A) another editor, probably B) what they want to achieve. After that you slowly discover features one after the other, which can only happen by using the editor a lot. It's good to have a "help X" around, but most of the time, if you're starting out, you don't know that X is what you need in the first place.<p>People learning git don't start with typing "git rebase --help" just to see what it does. You learn to add, commit, push, (probably from a tutorial) and then go from there.
> No other software product that I've ever come across or used has had a better documentation.<p>Vim requires so much documentation just to be usable. There is no GUI to hint at how to do anything. No toolbars, no application menus, no context menus or buttons. Vim's documentation is probably somewhat responsible for its popularity. I've never not found something I needed in Vim's documentation.
The documentation is so good, you need a beautifully crafted website with english sentences, standard typography / web styles, and acommpanying visual diagrams...simply to learn how to use the "help" feature.
Any one know how do I search for a shortcut in different modes?<p>For example, 'ctrl-r' in normal mode means redo, in insert mode means paste from register. However ':h ctrl-r' only shows the help for normal mode.
Does no one check their page layout on anything but 4k resolution any more? Here's what the page looks like on one of my 1280x1024 screens: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/w6WXYF6.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/w6WXYF6.png</a><p>Since the screen is physically on my left, it's very annoying to try to read the text.
I use vim (after years of being a happy emacs user — switched due to RSI), but I've never liked its help system. Compared to emacs, it's incredibly hard to navigate and it just doesn't have anything as powerful as C-h k (what does this key do?).
Can someone explain to me why people still use Vim and Emacs? Is it more efficient than GUIs like Sublime Text?<p>I only ever use Vim for quick edits and fail to see how one can be more effective in it when you can't click and highlight text.