*helphelp.txt* Nvim
VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar
Help on help files *helphelp*
Type |gO| to see the table of contents.
==============================================================================
1. Help commands *online-help*
*help* *<Help>* *:h* *:help* *<F1>* *i_<F1>* *i_<Help>*
<Help> or
:h[elp] Open a window and display the help file in read-only
mode. If there is a help window open already, use
that one. Otherwise, if the current window uses the
full width of the screen or is at least 80 characters
wide, the help window will appear just above the
current window. Otherwise the new window is put at
the very top.
The 'helplang' option is used to select a language, if
the main help file is available in several languages.
Type |gO| to see the table of contents.
*{subject}* *E149* *E661*
:h[elp] {subject} Like ":help", additionally jump to the tag {subject}.
For example: >
:help options
< {subject} can include wildcards such as "*", "?" and
"[a-z]":
:help z? jump to help for any "z" command
:help z. jump to the help for "z."
But when a tag exists it is taken literally:
:help :? jump to help for ":?"
If there is no full match for the pattern, or there
are several matches, the "best" match will be used.
A sophisticated algorithm is used to decide which
match is better than another one. These items are
considered in the computation:
- A match with same case is much better than a match
with different case.
- A match that starts after a non-alphanumeric
character is better than a match in the middle of a
word.
- A match at or near the beginning of the tag is
better than a match further on.
- The more alphanumeric characters match, the better.
- The shorter the length of the match, the better.
The 'helplang' option is used to select a language, if
the {subject} is available in several languages.
To find a tag in a specific language, append "@ab",
where "ab" is the two-letter language code. See
|help-translated|.
Note that the longer the {subject} you give, the less
matches will be found. You can get an idea how this
all works by using commandline completion (type CTRL-D
after ":help subject" |c_CTRL-D|).
If there are several matches, you can have them listed
by hitting CTRL-D. Example: >
:help cont<Ctrl-D>
< Instead of typing ":help CTRL-V" to search for help
for CTRL-V you can type: >
:help ^V
< This also works together with other characters, for
example to find help for CTRL-V in Insert mode: >
:help i^V
<
It is also possible to first do ":help" and then
use ":tag {pattern}" in the help window. The
":tnext" command can then be used to jump to other
matches, "tselect" to list matches and choose one. >
:help index
:tselect /.*mode
< When there is no argument you will see matches for
"help", to avoid listing all possible matches (that
would be very slow).
The number of matches displayed is limited to 300.
The `:help` command can be followed by '|' and another
command, but you don't need to escape the '|' inside a
help command. So these both work: >
:help |
:help k| only
< Note that a space before the '|' is seen as part of
the ":help" argument.
You can also use <NL> or <CR> to separate the help
command from a following command. You need to type
CTRL-V first to insert the <NL> or <CR>. Example: >
:help so<C-V><CR>only
<
:h[elp]! [subject] Like ":help", but in non-English help files prefer to
find a tag in a file with the same language as the
current file. See |help-translated|.
*:helpc* *:helpclose*
:helpc[lose] Close one help window, if there is one.
Vim will try to restore the window layout (including
cursor position) to the same layout it was before
opening the help window initially.