Moving around the vim command line

Question

I've been a vim user for a while now and I know how to move around the files, but is there anyway to do so on the editor command line itself (is there a name for that?).

eg I typed :vimgerp /sometext/ files/*.js and I realized I spelled :vimgrep incorrectly and I want to just jump to the beginning of that line and fix it. Any other sort of small tips here (jump between words -- neither w,e nor alt+left/right seem to work) also appreciated.

Answer 1

http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/usr_20.html

<Left>          one character left
<Right>         one character right
<S-Left> or <C-Left>    one word left
<S-Right> or <C-Right>  one word right
CTRL-B or <Home>    to begin of command line
CTRL-E or <End>     to end of command line

Answer 2

The easiest method would be to use CTRL - F . This opens your command in the command-line window where you can edit your misspelled command like any other plain text.

from vimhelp

OPEN c_CTRL-F q: q/ q?

There are two ways to open the command-line window:

1. From Command-line mode, use the key specified with the 'cedit' option. The default is CTRL-F when 'compatible' is not set.

2. From Normal mode, use the "q:", "q/" or "q?" command. This starts editing an Ex command-line ("q:") or search string ("q/" or
   "q?"). Note that this is not possible while recording is in progress (the "q" stops recording then).

Answer 3

It's not the fastest and therefore probably only worth it for long commands, but you could just hit enter on the incorrect command as is, u ndo any incorrect changes if necessary, then open up your command history with q: , where you can edit it as you like. Enter then runs the command if you have your cursor over it in the command history buffer.

Also, shift+arrow left/right jumps between words in command mode, and you can use home/end to go to the beginning and end.