Advance to next (multi)characters on a line

Question

To advance to the next/previous character match on a line I can do:

• f <char>

However, I find myself wanting to match against two characters on that line, for example, something like:

• f ='

Is this possible to do? Or do I need to do a full search at the bottom (starting with /). I find the search to be a bit 'out of the way' and prefer using f/F when I can!

Answer 1

Vim provides the f, t or F, T command to jump forward or backward to a character in current line, and you can repeat the action by pressing , or ;. While these commands are useful, they are not powerful enough to be of real value:

• The movement is restricted to current line.
• There are possibly many repetitions since you can only provide one character.

vim-sneak solves these two issues neatly. With vim-sneak, you can go anywhere your eyes can see in just four key strokes in most cases, which is one of the most amazing plugins I have ever seen.

After installing this plugin, add the following minimal settings to your configuration:

let g:sneak#label = 1
nmap f <Plug>Sneak_s
nmap F <Plug>Sneak_S

The above settings will map f and F to search forward and backward respectively and use the sneak label mode.

For example, if you want to go to the character i which is followed by m, first press f, then press im, all occurrences of im will be highlighted and given a label.

Press the character in a label, the cursor will jump to that location, which is really amazing.

Another similar vim plugin is vim-easymotion.

Ref: precise cursor movement in vim.

Answer 2

Some plugins make it possible. The one I tried out is called sneak and is quite good. Its readme list other similar plugins that you can try