what is insert select mode in Vim - vim

I head it from someone, but I can't understand it.
Although found that in reddit: wtf_is_insert_select_mode , I don't have any idea still.
Could anyone explain it and give me some example?

Do you really want more than this, from :help vim-modes?
Insert Select mode Entered when starting Select mode from Insert mode.
E.g., by dragging the mouse or <S-Right>.
When the Select mode ends, Vim returns to Insert mode.
If the 'showmode' option is on "-- (insert) SELECT --"
is shown at the bottom of the window.

Related

Weird characters are added when I press alt-tab in vim's insert mode

Hello Dear Vim Lovers,
The situation is this.
I am editing something in vim. While I am in insert mode, I press alt-tab key to switch to another window. When I return back to vim, I am seeing alt and tab keys were captured by vim and inserted into my text.
It seems like [O[I[O[I[O[I[O[I.
I am working in gnome-terminal. I do not recall this behavior in my previous setups. There must be something wrong but I could not figure it out yet. In case anyone knows how to fix it, please let me know.
Thank you!
I was running into this problem after remapping <Esc> to a noop as recommended here. Deleting the remap stopped the characters from being inserted.

How to use vim autowrap correctly?

I am trying to use the vim autowrap functionality to automatically wrap my paragraph into lines no longer than 80 letters in real time as I type. This can be done by set textwidth=80 and set fo+=a. The a option of the vim formatoptions or fo basically tells vim to wrap the entire paragraph while typing.
However, there is a very annoying side-effect, that I can no longer break a line by simply pressing enter.
This is a sample sentence.
Say for the above sentence, if I want to make it into:
This is
a sample sentence.
Usually I can just move the cursor to "a" and enter insert mode and then press enter. But after set fo+=a, nothing will happen when I press enter in the insert mode at "a". One thing I do notice is that if there is no space between "is" and "a", pressing enter will insert a space. But nothing else will happen after that.
So what do I miss here? How do I stop this annoying behavior?
You can run :help fo-table to see explanations of the options:
a Automatic formatting of paragraphs. Every time text is inserted or
deleted the paragraph will be reformatted. See |auto-format|.
When the 'c' flag is present this only happens for recognized
comments.
This means that every time you insert a character, vim will try and autoformat the paragraph. This will cause it to move everything back onto the same line.
I don't think you need to add a at all. I use neovim, but the behavior here should be the same. The default values are, according to the help pages:
(default: "tcqj", Vi default: "vt")
Try removing set fo+=a entirely from your .vimrc. Keep set textwidth=80. That should fix your issue.
EDIT: Once you have set textwidth=80, if you want to format an existing paragraph, you can highlight it in visual selection and press gq.
The following allows me to use the enter key to start a new line while setting the text width to be 79 characters:
set tw=79 "width of document
set fo=cqt
set wm=0 "# margin from right window border
After some exploration, I find a workaround that can solve the problem to some extent, though not perfect.
The basic idea is that when entering a line break, disable the auto-wrapping temporarily when sending <CR> and resume auto-wrapping after that. There are multiple ways of doing that. And the best one as far as I know is using the paste mode, since you don't have to exit insert mode when entering paste mode. So just make the following commands into any key binding you like in insert mode. The one I am using right now is inoremap <C-N> <F2><CR><F2>
The reason why I think this one is not optimal is that for some reason I cannot bind <Enter> in this way, but have to use another key.
If <Enter> or <CR> can be configured in this way then the problem is 100% solved.

What's a common use case of "selection mode" in vim?

It's the first time i noticed about the selection mode in vim when i accidentally triggered it from visual-line mode by <c-g>.
Vim already has visual mode for text selection what's the use case of selection mode, can anyone give me a hint on this?
(note: i've checked the manual page which describes it as
a resemblance of MS Windows text selection
but i still cannot quite understand why do we need any mouse actions in vim)
Select-mode is commonly used in snippet plugins such as vim-snipmate. Mappings can be created that are unique to select-mode so as not to interfere with regular visual mode behaviour.
Here is an excerpt from Practical Vim by Drew Neil:
If you are happy to embrace the modal nature of Vim, then you should
find little use for Select mode, which holds the hand of users who
want to make Vim behave more like other text editors. I can think of
only one place where I consistently use Select mode: when using a
plugin that emulates TextMate's snippet functionality, Select mode
highlights the active placeholder.
As the documentation suggests, select mode is a bit different from visual mode. Here's the commands you can do in it:
Commands in Select mode:
- Printable characters, <NL> and <CR> cause the selection to be deleted, and
Vim enters Insert mode. The typed character is inserted.
- Non-printable movement commands, with the Shift key pressed, extend the
selection. 'keymodel' must include "startsel".
- Non-printable movement commands, with the Shift key NOT pressed, stop Select
mode. 'keymodel' must include "stopsel".
- ESC stops Select mode.
- CTRL-O switches to Visual mode for the duration of one command. *v_CTRL-O*
- CTRL-G switches to Visual mode.
Otherwise, typed characters are handled as in Visual mode.
When using an operator in Select mode, and the selection is linewise, the
selected lines are operated upon, but like in characterwise selection. For
example, when a whole line is deleted, it can later be pasted halfway a line.
You can see the docs here.
What they mean by "resembles MS Windows selection" is probably that you can extend the selection with Shift+Arrows, and also that any printable characters entered will substitute the selected text and enter insert mode.
Also, see this question/answer at the vi.SE.

Vim does not like brackets

I have a problem that have been bothering me for days now.
Whatever I do, I simply cannot place any single {,},[ or ].
Every time I try, it takes me up to the next or previous paragraph. I've looked it up and I can't find a good way to unmap it and finally have my azerty keyboard to behave correctly so I can peacefully code
In the normal mode, press 'i' to enter the insert mode.
And you can start to edit your file.
After everything is done, press the 'ESC' key and then ':wq' to save your modification.
Vim / vi has several different modes. This dates back to the times when you would edit using a teletyper, i.e. no "visual" representation of the data you are editing, no mouse etc.
With only the "usual" keys at your disposal, you need to navigate in the data, you need to insert data, and you need to execute commands on the data. Not so coincidentially, these are the three modes of Vim / vi, and in each mode, the keys do something differently.
By default, the editor starts in the "normal mode", which you will use to navigate, and enter the other modes from.
In this mode, ) moves you to the end of the sentence, ( to the previous sentence. } and { do the same for paragraphs, combinations of [ and ] work with chapters.
If you enter "insert mode" (most simply by pressing i in "normal mode"), you can enter all the above letters normally. You exit "insert mode" by pressing <Esc>. You will recognize "insert mode" by -- INSERT -- being displayed in the bottommost line of the screen.
If you are in "insert mode", and pressing any of the above keys does move your cursor instead of entering the corresponding symbol, there is some (broken) configuration at work. Check your ~/.vimrc, and if necessary, rename it and try again with a "clean" configuration.
It is next to impossible to do Vim / vi justice in the scope of a SO answer. It is very much an expert-friendly editor, not a novice-friendly one. You need to actually learn how to use this editor, but it is absolutely worth it in the long run.
In insert mode, you should be able to insert brackets without trouble.
In normal mode, those correspond to motions.
To go to insert mode from normal mode, press i.
See: :h object-motions
Alright, Problem Solved ! I had to uninstall and reinstall the Ubuntu bash on windows 10 multiple times and it worked ! Thanks for the help everone !

edit gvim mouse buttons

I have a two part question regarding mouse clicks on gvim.
1.) I would like to change my gvim double left mouse click into something similar to the windows environment (ie Notepad, Microsoft Word), wherein it: highlights the current word, and replaces it with whatever I type. This is akin to pressing 'cw' for changeword in vim.
2.) I would like my single mouse click to place a cursor upon the selected text and enter insert mode. Again like how a mouse normally behaves in Windows.
1) nmap <2-LeftMouse> ciw
You could use viw here, which will visually select the current word, but then you will still have to press c to replace it.
2) nmap <LeftMouse> <Leftmouse>i
Or replace the i with an a if you would prefer to append, rather than insert.
You can use behave mswin or so $VIMRUNTIME/mswin.vim so set up a lot of stuff so that it works more like a regular windows program.
The specific setting you are looking for are:
set select=mouse
this causes the mouse to start select mode instead of visual mode. Select mode causes the selection to be deleted and insert mode to be entered when a printable key is pressed.
As in Prince Goulash's answer
nmap <LeftMouse> <LeftMouse>i
will turn on a sort of click-to-type mode.

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