I just discovered these two gems yesterday.

  • You can use VI as a file system browser. Typing this:
    vi /
    displays all the files and directories in /. "?" then displays the shortcuts used for navigating the directories and loading files.
  • vimdiff file1 file2
    will give you a visual diff of the two files. vimdiff works in console mode and gvimdiff (if you have it) will work in your GUI.