Vim 9.2 released

[Posted February 14, 2026 by corbet]

Version 9.2 of the Vim text editor has been released. "Vim 9.2 brings significant enhancements to the Vim9 scripting language, improved diff mode, comprehensive completion features, and platform-specific improvements including experimental Wayland support." Also included is a new interactive tutor mode.

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Ruler Default Changed?

Posted Feb 14, 2026 22:04 UTC (Sat) by ryanduve (subscriber, #127786) [Link] (1 responses)

In the release notes under "Changed Default Values" I see "ruler" has been changed from "off" to "on" by default. However, when I open 9.2 and 8.2.2121 side by side the ruler behavior seems identical. Does anyone know how to tell the difference?

Ruler Default Changed?

Posted Feb 14, 2026 22:12 UTC (Sat) by ackyshake (subscriber, #157498) [Link]

I believe this is because the file defaults.vim[1] is being loaded. If you run both vim versions with "vim -u NONE", you should see the ruler turned off by default under the 8.2 version.

[1]: https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/bc1a82245c8228fb0a59e9a89...

Viva VIM!

Posted Feb 15, 2026 17:54 UTC (Sun) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] (3 responses)

As a 27 year Vim user, I'm looking forward to trying the interactive tutor mode. :D Yes, I'm still learning Vim, and enjoy finding out interesting things about features I previously only had a surface knowledge of.

Thank you Vim devs! RIP Bram Moolenaar.

Viva VIM!

Posted Feb 16, 2026 1:11 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (2 responses)

I like vi for proofreading, emacs for editing. Long ago there was a book "UNIX Power Tools", and this is notes I had from it on vi tricks which were new to me. I suspect most long-time vi users know most of them.

(I haven't tested these recently. Could be some are no longer correct.)

^^ (CONTROL-SHIFT-6) is the same as :e#.

Yanking to an uppercase buffer name appends rather than emptying before copying. Thus "a4Y copies four lines into buffer a, and "A4Y appends 4 lines to the end of buffer a.

The nine numbered buffers (1-9) are the results of the last 9 line deletions. "2p recovers your next to last delete. These buffers only collect line deletions, not character deletes from the middle of lines.

With numbered buffers, the . command increments the buffer number. Thus, if 2p wasn't what you wanted, you can type u.u.u. until you find the one you want or run out of numbered buffers.

With :w, % is the current file name. For instance, :w %.new.

:w >>file appends.

:96,99!sort feeds lines 96 thru 99 to sort and replaces them with the output.

ma saves the line position in register a. 'a (quote) moves to the beginning of the marked line; `a (backquote) moves to the exact character position.

Unix Power Tools and vi/vim books

Posted Feb 16, 2026 2:12 UTC (Mon) by devnull13 (subscriber, #18626) [Link] (1 responses)

FYI - O’Reilly still sells the “UNIX Power Tools” book although it hasn’t been updated since 2009. You can find it on-line here: https://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/unix/upt/index.htm

For those interested in learning more about vi/vim, O’Reilly has a book called “Learning the vi and Vim Editors”. You can find it on-line here: https://elhacker.info/manuales/Sistemas%20Operativos/Linu...

Unix Power Tools and vi/vim books

Posted Feb 20, 2026 0:20 UTC (Fri) by contrapunctus (subscriber, #177355) [Link]

And not to overlook Modern Vim: Craft Your Development Environment with Vim 8 and Neovim or Practical Vim 2nd ed. both by Drew Neil.