Here is the usage of $c: Imagine you are editing "~/Desktop/project/view/core/admin/MenuEdit.tmpl" and the cwd (current working directory) is "~/Desktop/project". Now imagine that you need to edit something else in the MenuEdit directory (admin dir), but you don't want to change the cwd. Then you go to the Vim commandline and press $c, and it will transform to "e ~/Desktop/project/view/core/admin/". That is, the $c expands to "e " + the directory of the current file. Here is the usage of : Enter commandline and press $c, then press , your commandline should then be "e ~/Desktop/project/view/core/".