# Vim documentation: usr_09

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    *usr_09.txt*	For Vim version 9.2.  Last change: 2026 Feb 14

    		     VIM USER MANUAL	by Bram Moolenaar

    				Using the GUI

    Vim works in an ordinary terminal, while gVim has a Graphical User Interface
    (GUI).  It can do the same things and a few more.  The GUI offers menus, a
    toolbar, scrollbars and other items.  This chapter is about these extra things
    that the GUI offers.

    |09.1|	Parts of the GUI
    |09.2|	Using the mouse
    |09.3|	The clipboard
    |09.4|	Select mode

         Next chapter: |usr_10.txt|  Making big changes
     Previous chapter: |usr_08.txt|  Splitting windows
    Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt|

    ==============================================================================

    *09.1*	Parts of the GUI

    You might have an icon on your desktop that starts gvim.  Otherwise, one of
    these commands should do it:

    	gvim file.txt
    	vim -g file.txt

    If this doesn't work you don't have a version of Vim with GUI support.  You
    will have to install one first.
       Vim will open a window and display "file.txt" in it.  What the window looks
    like depends on the version of Vim.  It should resemble the following picture
    (for as far as this can be shown in ASCII!).

    	+----------------------------------------------------+
    	| file.txt + (~/dir) - VIM			   X |	<- window title
    	+----------------------------------------------------+
    	| File	Edit  Tools  Syntax  Buffers  Window  Help   |	<- menubar
    	+----------------------------------------------------+
    	| aaa  bbb  ccc  ddd  eee  fff	ggg  hhh  iii  jjj   |	<- toolbar
    	| aaa  bbb  ccc  ddd  eee  fff	ggg  hhh  iii  jjj   |
    	+----------------------------------------------------+
    	| file text					 | ^ |
    	| ~						 | # |
    	| ~						 | # |	<- scrollbar
    	| ~						 | # |
    	| ~						 | # |
    	| ~						 | # |
    	|						 | V |
    	+----------------------------------------------------+

    The largest space is occupied by the file text.  This shows the file in the
    same way as in a terminal.  With some different colors and another font
    perhaps.

    THE WINDOW TITLE

    At the very top is the window title.  This is drawn by your window system.
    Vim will set the title to show the name of the current file.  First comes the
    name of the file.  Then some special characters and the directory of the file
    in parens.  These special characters can be present:

    	-	The file cannot be modified (e.g., a help file)
    	+	The file contains changes
    	=	The file is read-only
    	=+	The file is read-only, contains changes anyway

    If nothing is shown you have an ordinary, unchanged file.

    THE MENUBAR

    You know how menus work, right?  Vim has the usual items, plus a few more.
    Browse them to get an idea of what you can use them for.  A relevant submenu
    is Edit/Global Settings.  You will find these entries:

    	Toggle Toolbar		make the toolbar appear/disappear
    	Toggle Bottom Scrollbar	make a scrollbar appear/disappear at the bottom
    	Toggle Left Scrollbar	make a scrollbar appear/disappear at the left
    	Toggle Right Scrollbar	make a scrollbar appear/disappear at the right

    On most systems you can tear-off the menus.  Select the top item of the menu,
    the one that looks like a dashed line.  You will get a separate window with
    the items of the menu.  It will hang around until you close the window.

    THE TOOLBAR

    This contains icons for the most often used actions.  Hopefully the icons are
    self-explanatory.  There are tooltips to get an extra hint (move the mouse
    pointer to the icon without clicking and don't move it for a second).

    The "Edit/Global Settings/Toggle Toolbar" menu item can be used to make the
    toolbar disappear.  If you never want a toolbar, use this command in your
    vimrc file:

    	:set guioptions-=T

    This removes the 'T' flag from the 'guioptions' option.  Other parts of the
    GUI can also be enabled or disabled with this option.  See the help for it.

    THE SCROLLBARS

    By default there is one scrollbar on the right.  It does the obvious thing.
    When you split the window, each window will get its own scrollbar.
       You can make a horizontal scrollbar appear with the menu item
    Edit/Global Settings/Toggle Bottom Scrollbar.  This is useful in diff mode, or
    when the 'wrap' option has been reset (more about that later).

    When there are vertically split windows, only the windows on the right side
    will have a scrollbar.  However, when you move the cursor to a window on the
    left, it will be this one that the scrollbar controls.  This takes a bit of
    time to get used to.
       When you work with vertically split windows, consider adding a scrollbar on
    the left.  This can be done with a menu item, or with the 'guioptions' option:

    	:set guioptions+=l

    This adds the 'l' flag to 'guioptions'.

    ==============================================================================

    *09.2*	Using the mouse

    Standards are wonderful.  In Microsoft Windows, you can use the mouse to
    select text in a standard manner.  The X Window system also has a standard
    system for using the mouse.  Unfortunately, these two standards are not the
    same.
       Fortunately, you can customize Vim.  You can make the behavior of the mouse
    work like an X Window system mouse or a Microsoft Windows mouse.  The
    following command makes the mouse behave like an X Window mouse:

    	:behave xterm

    The following command makes the mouse work like a Microsoft Windows mouse:

    	:behave mswin

    The default behavior of the mouse on UNIX systems is xterm.  The default
    behavior on a Microsoft Windows system is selected during the installation
    process.  For details about what the two behaviors are, see |:behave|.  Here
    follows a summary.

    XTERM MOUSE BEHAVIOR

    Left mouse click		position the cursor
    Left mouse drag			select text in Visual mode
    Middle mouse click		paste text from the clipboard
    Right mouse click		extend the selected text until the mouse
    				pointer

    MSWIN MOUSE BEHAVIOR

    Left mouse click		position the cursor
    Left mouse drag			select text in Select mode (see |09.4|)
    Left mouse click, with Shift	extend the selected text until the mouse
    				pointer
    Middle mouse click		paste text from the clipboard
    Right mouse click		display a pop-up menu

    The mouse can be further tuned.  Check out these options if you want to change
    the way how the mouse works:

    	'mouse'			in which mode the mouse is used by Vim
    	'mousemodel'		what effect a mouse click has
    	'mousetime'		time between clicks for a double-click
    	'mousehide'		hide the mouse while typing
    	'selectmode'		whether the mouse starts Visual or Select mode

    ==============================================================================

    *09.3*	The clipboard

    In section |04.7| the basic use of the clipboard was explained.  There is one
    essential thing to explain about X-windows: There are actually two places to
    exchange text between programs.  MS-Windows doesn't have this.

    In X-Windows there is the "current selection".  This is the text that is
    currently highlighted.  In Vim this is the Visual area (this assumes you are
    using the default option settings).  You can paste this selection in another
    application without any further action.
       For example, in this text select a few words with the mouse.  Vim will
    switch to Visual mode and highlight the text.  Now start another gvim, without
    a file name argument, so that it displays an empty window.  Click the middle
    mouse button.  The selected text will be inserted.

    The "current selection" will only remain valid until some other text is
    selected.  After doing the paste in the other gvim, now select some characters
    in that window.  You will notice that the words that were previously selected
    in the other gvim window are displayed differently.  This means that it no
    longer is the current selection.

    You don't need to select text with the mouse, using the keyboard commands for
    Visual mode works just as well.

    THE REAL CLIPBOARD

    Now for the other place with which text can be exchanged.  We call this the
    "real clipboard", to avoid confusion.  Often both the "current selection" and
    the "real clipboard" are called clipboard, you'll have to get used to that.
       To put text on the real clipboard, select a few different words in one of
    the gvims you have running.  Then use the Edit/Copy menu entry.  Now the text
    has been copied to the real clipboard.  You can't see this, unless you have
    some application that shows the clipboard contents (e.g., KDE's Klipper).
       Now select the other gvim, position the cursor somewhere and use the
    Edit/Paste menu.  You will see the text from the real clipboard is inserted.

    USING BOTH

    This use of both the "current selection" and the "real clipboard" might sound
    a bit confusing.  But it is very useful.  Let's show this with an example.
    Use one gvim with a text file and perform these actions:

    -  Select two words in Visual mode.
    -  Use the Edit/Copy menu to get these words onto the clipboard.
    -  Select one other word in Visual mode.
    -  Use the Edit/Paste menu item.  What will happen is that the single selected
       word is replaced with the two words from the clipboard.
    -  Move the mouse pointer somewhere else and click the middle button.  You
       will see that the word you just overwrote with the clipboard is inserted
       here.

    If you use the "current selection" and the "real clipboard" with care, you can
    do a lot of useful editing with them.

    USING THE KEYBOARD

    If you don't like using the mouse, you can access the current selection and
    the real clipboard with two registers.  The "* register is for the current
    selection.
       To make text become the current selection, use Visual mode.  For example,
    to select a whole line just press "V".
       To insert the current selection before the cursor:

    	"*P

    Notice the uppercase "P".  The lowercase "p" puts the text after the cursor.

    The "+ register is used for the real clipboard.  For example, to copy the text
    from the cursor position until the end of the line to the clipboard:

    	"+y$

    Remember, "y" is yank, which is Vim's copy command.
       To insert the contents of the real clipboard before the cursor:

    	"+P

    It's the same as for the current selection, but uses the plus (+) register
    instead of the star (*) register.

    ==============================================================================

    *09.4*	Select mode

    And now something that is used more often on MS-Windows than on X-Windows.
    But both can do it.  You already know about Visual mode.  Select mode is like
    Visual mode, because it is also used to select text.  But there is an obvious
    difference: When typing text, the selected text is deleted and the typed text
    replaces it.

    To start working with Select mode, you must first enable it (for MS-Windows
    it is probably already enabled, but you can do this anyway):

    	:set selectmode+=mouse

    Now use the mouse to select some text.  It is highlighted like in Visual mode.
    Now press a letter.  The selected text is deleted, and the single letter
    replaces it.  You are in Insert mode now, thus you can continue typing.

    Since typing normal text causes the selected text to be deleted, you can not
    use the normal movement commands "hjkl", "w", etc.  Instead, use the shifted
    function keys.  <S-Left> (shifted cursor left key) moves the cursor left.  The
    selected text is changed like in Visual mode.  The other shifted cursor keys
    do what you expect.  <S-End> and <S-Home> also work.

    You can tune the way Select mode works with the 'selectmode' option.

    ==============================================================================

    Next chapter: |usr_10.txt|  Making big changes

    Copyright: see |manual-copyright|  vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl:
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