Easter Eggs

Help!

For the distressed user, vim provides words of wisdom.

:help!

When you’re feeling down

Problem: Vim users are not always happy.

Solution: Make them happy.

:smile

Note: Requires patch version ≥7.4.1005

The Answer

Vim knows The Answer:

:help 42

Vim will open the usr_42.txt document from the manual and show the following text:

What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? 42

Douglas Adams, the only person who knew what this question really was about is

now dead, unfortunately. So now you might wonder what the meaning of death is…

Looking for the Holy Grail

Check this out:

:help holy-grail

Ceci n’est pas une pipe

If you look for the help section of | or bar : :h bar you can see:

                                                    bar
|                       To screen column [count] in the current line.
                        exclusive motion.  Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

This is a reference to the painting La trahison des images by René Magritte.

When a user is getting bored

Search for :h UserGettingBored

                        *UserGettingBored*
UserGettingBored        When the user presses the same key 42 times.
                        Just kidding! :-)

Spoon

Instead of looking for the fork help, you can search for the spoon help:

:h spoon

                                                    fork spoon
For executing external commands fork()/exec() is used when possible, otherwise
system() is used, which is a bit slower.  The output of ":version" includes ...

Knights who say Ni!

Check this out:

:Ni!

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

nunmap

:help map-modes

:nunmap can also be used outside of a monastery.