Bicycle For Your Mind
Sublime Tutor: Sensei for Aspiring Sublime Text Ninjas
Product: Sublime Tutor
Price: Free
Keyboard commands. That is what separates the text editor ninja from the novice. On the path to text editing ninja status, you are better off picking one text editor and learning it. Learn it deeply. That means you have to learn the keyboard commands that allow you to do stuff in the text editor. Every command has one, the more you know, the more efficient you are in it.
The less you have to go to the menus, or click on buttons, or use the mouse at all, the more efficient you will be.
How Do You Reach Ninja State?
- Pick a text editor. Any one. On the Mac, Sublime Text 3, BBEdit, Atom, TextMate, vim, emacs, or, Chocolat, are all good choices. I use Sublime Text 3.
- Stay in that text editor for all your text editing needs. Keep it open all the time. Work in it whenever you are writing something.
- Infuse the keyboard commands into your muscle memory. How does one do this?
Keyboard Commands Into Muscle Memory
How do you fuse the knowledge of keyboard commands into your muscles?
- Learn them. In Sublime Text 3 and Atom, you can reach every command by evoking the command palette (⌘+⇧+P). Then you start typing words from the command you need and the fuzzy search gives you the command you are looking for. Next to it, is the keyboard command. Make a note of it, use it. Next time, avoid the command palette, type the keyboard command. In BBEdit, check out the Menus and Shortcuts preferences. In most other text editors read the manual or the help files. Search the Internet for cheatsheets.
- Learn them in bunches. Few of them at a time. Use them. Don't try to learn all of them at one time. You are not going to get there. Learn them in small batches. Let your muscles, both your fingers and your brain learn them, get used to them, welcome them into your life. Do this again and again.
- Give yourself time. You are not going to become a text editing ninja in a week or a month. It is going to take time. Give yourself that time.
- If you keep at it, you are going to get there. You are going to achieve ninja status.
Being a Sublime Text user, I am interested in learning how to use the text editor better and there is a new plugin which aids this effort.
Sublime Tutor is an attempt to teach you keyboard commands in Sublime Text 3 through a tutorial which is built into the program. It derives inspiration from vimtutor, and delivers small chunks of information to you, to aid you in the process of achieving true Sublime Text 3 mastery.
You can use package control to install the plugin. You can read about it here. Check out the package control page here.
It comes with 6 modules, 39 chapters and 70 features and shortcuts. It is intensive, it is complete and it is well organized. It will take time to get through it all. Don't hurry that process. It is not sensible to expect to incorporate all of that information into your workflow at once. Let it seep into your muscle memory. Do a few chapters at a time. Use what you have learned. When you get comfortable with it, ingest a few more chapters. Repeat the process again and again.
I am grateful to Jai Pandya for making this available. It is a fantastic resource and a worthwhile addition to the Sublime Text 3 arsenal. Thank you Jai.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie