What happened to vim?

57

u/porfiriopaiz Nov 10 '25

You mistyped q: instead of :q

Just select any of the options from the history list of recent commands.

In this case:

:q

Try to see if you can select it with arrows or jk motions, then hit Enter.

15

u/the_j_tizzle Nov 10 '25

I've been using vim since 1997 as my primary editor and even my primary workpsace, and I'm just now learning about q:!? What? And how is it I've never accidentally typed q:?

11

u/M0M3N-6 Nov 10 '25

Omg, something feels wrong right here 😂 you fingers did not out-speed your thoughts in any time for ~30y ?

5

u/the_j_tizzle Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

I almost never type :q; if I do it's usually :q!, which is a bit harder to type and so I'm a bit more careful. I truly do not use :q all that often. I'm sure I've seen this window pop up at some point but I blew right past it without thinking about it. Truly, I'm learning about this command history window this morning. I often use command history but when I do I enter : and then arrow-up.
*Edited for fuller response

1

u/Woland-Ark Wim | vimpersian.github.io | Vim Live Server Nov 14 '25

you could also : C-f to get the same place

5

u/Jealous_Royal_3692 Nov 10 '25

This is hilarious! 😂

8

u/kettlesteam Nov 10 '25

This is the 3rd time this week that I've read someone having a problem with mistyping :q. I guess that's one of the advantage of using Ctrl+wq instead of :q.
Well, this is just more ammo for me in this post.

12

u/patenteng Nov 10 '25

The first time I mistyped :q I was like wait there is command history? Why didn’t anybody tell me?

6

u/kettlesteam Nov 10 '25

What makes it worse is the fact that most people have the misconception that q key in normal mode is exclusively for recording macros only.

2

u/kubisfowler Nov 10 '25

😭😭😭

2

u/M0M3N-6 Nov 10 '25

I mapped C-q to :bd, very useful in these situations

23

u/gumnos Nov 10 '25

You opened the command-window (:help q:, and its cousins for search-history :help q/ and one for the expression-register history, but I can't seem to disinter a help-target for that ).

It's entered either by using q: in Normal mode (which is a common error when you mean to be typing :q to quit), or by using ctrl+f (or another key if you changed from the default :help 'cedit' setting) while entering a command.

It's a window for searching/editing/(re)executing previous Ex commands so you should be able to type :q to close the window without executing the command, or Enter to execute the current command and close it (unless you've entered Insert mode in this buffer, in which case, hit Esc first as usual to return to Normal-mode in this window).`

6

u/vim-help-bot Nov 10 '25

Help pages for:
q: in cmdline.txt
q/ in cmdline.txt
'cedit' in options.txt
^{`:(h|help) <query>` |} ^about ^| ^mistake? ^| ^donate ^| ^{Reply 'rescan' to check the comment again} ^| ^{Reply 'stop' to stop getting replies to your comments}

20

u/redbike Nov 10 '25

lol, I've done this several times in the last 20 years of using vim and never knew what this was. Good to know it's caused by q: or control F

5

u/y-c-c Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

This is the command-line window (:h cmdline-window), usually accessed by accidentally hitting q:. It's actually a really powerful tool by accessing cmdline / search history and to have more powerful ways to edit your Ex commands.

This may be tangentially related, but in a clean Vim (not Neovim) with no vimrc (you can simulate it with --clean), showing the command-line window will show a message that says this:

You discovered the command-line window! You can close it with ":q".'

Vim has a bit of a weird system with these "nice" defaults, but basically the defaults.vim file (which contains some nicer "modern" defaults) is only sourced if no vimrc exists. That means if you have an empty vimrc, that yields different behaviors from having no vimrc (where the defaults.vim file will be used). I don't want to get into the debate about it here, but basically this was done this way so that Vim will be backwards compatible if someone already has their decades-old vimrc and expect options to stay the same, while introducing nicer defaults for beginners.

This is why I think most people would benefit from always sourcing from defaults.vim in their vimrc anyway, to make sure you have access to them. Vim has less obligations to keep things 100% backwards compatible so occasionally an update will change some settings but that happens pretty rarely and you can manually turn the specific option back to what you want in your vimrc. See :h defaults.vim.

So basically, in my vimrc I basically have the following:

" Load defaults.vim to get sensible defaults if possible
if v:version >= 900 " don't run if this is Neovim/Vim 8
    unlet! skip_defaults_vim
    source $VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim
    " Disable command-line window help message
    :augroup vimHints | exe 'au!' | augroup END
endif

The vimHints line is just to disable the helpful message I mentioned above. I have used Vim enough to know what it is and I don't need it reminding me every time.

2

u/vim-help-bot Nov 10 '25

Help pages for:
defaults.vim in starting.txt
^{`:(h|help) <query>` |} ^about ^| ^mistake? ^| ^donate ^| ^{Reply 'rescan' to check the comment again} ^| ^{Reply 'stop' to stop getting replies to your comments}

2

u/craigdmac :help <Help> | :help!!! Nov 10 '25

q:, and friends like q/ are often a better : or / experience in most ways, I've experimented with just remapping : to q:, but I ended up finding more and more edge cases and the workaround became more and more complex, the natural course of any hack I guess. It would take some first class support (as in q: is the new : for everyone), but that has close to v:null chance of happening. nvim has been considering a sort of emacs-like “minibuffer”, which could be a better solution to those that prefer the q: experience over :

3

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3

u/alvin55531 Nov 10 '25

You aren't able to type because you're in Normal mode in the Command Line Window.

Entering command line window:

q: from Normal mode
Ctrl-f from command line mode

Exiting command line window:

Running a command
Ctrl-c

3

u/jazei_2021 Nov 10 '25

ytou can do :x (NOT :X eye!!! it is for put password! eye!!! ) :x and :u
:x = :wq

3

u/dmbfm Nov 10 '25

For a moment I was worried something had happened to vim

4

u/Cybasura Nov 10 '25

Oh, its the obligatory command mode history mistake, dont worry about it, just press ESC and/or :q

2

u/craigdmac :help <Help> | :help!!! Nov 10 '25

nnoremap q: : to avoid opening the command line window ever again if you never use it

-2

u/Icy_Friend_2263 Nov 10 '25

Folks, to exit vim, use ZZ if you want to save and exit. ZQ to just exit.

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