I'm working on a plugin to allow bracket completion (I know it's available, it's more of a learning exercise). To properly implement it, I need to add to the backspace mapping. However, as it's an important key, I'd rather keep the existing functionality and just add to it rather than reimplementing the functionality. The steps would basically be when in insert mode and press backspace, execute the original backspace key, then check for some conditions and maybe remove more characters.
I've tried something like imap <backspace> <backspace><call_func_here>, but that doesn't seem to work. Again, I know I could remap backspace to just the function and try to recreate the backspace functionality, but I'd prefer to not do that.
Is this possible in vim?
I think what you are trying to do is the following:
inoremap <silent> <BS> <BS><C-o>:call MyFunction()<CR>
inoremap allows to create a non recurrent mapping in insert mode (it is often a good idea to use nore in your mappings). :h :inoremap
<silent> precise that the mapping will not be echoed on the command line (You will not see :call MyFunction() in the command line) :h :map-silent
<BS> is the reference to the backspace key that you want to remap.
The second <BS> is here to issue a backspace in insert mode
<C-o> switches to normal mode for only a command. :h i_CTRL-O
:call MyFunction() is the call to your function the way you would do it in normal mode.
<CR> correspond to the Enter key which validate the call to your function.
I want to be able to save a file in vim while in the insert mode. I thought of using the following shortcut:
inoremap <leader>w <Esc>:w<cr>
While the shortcut saves the file in the insert mode, it leaves the cursor one spot ahead of where the cursor would be if I physically typed out the keys
Esc :w followed by Enter. This is a problem because when I use the shortcut whenever I am at the end of a line, it takes me to the next line, and I have to then come back to the spot where I initiated the save.
Any help would be appreciated on how I can map <leader>w to the exact actions that occur in Vim when I physically type out the Esc :w followed by Enter key sequence.
I should add that if I instead use the following key-mapping, things work exactly as I want:
inoremap <C-s> <esc>:w<CR>
However, I would like to avoid pressing CTRL and s at the same time. It is possible there is some problem with the <leader>, but I cannot figure out what it is (I am using , as my leader key).
Though one could discuss the suitability of your insert-mode mapping, the root cause of your problem is a trailing space in the mapping definition; i.e. Vim reads this as follows:
inoremap <leader>w <Esc>:w<cr><Space>
You'll even see this in the :imap <Leader>w output! <Space> in normal mode advances the cursor one to the right (like l); that explains the unexpected move.
Try this instead:
inoremap <silent> <leader>w <C-o>:w<CR>
The idea is Ctrl-o can be used to run commands directly from insert mode. See :help i_CTRL-O for details.
Why not simply doing
inoremap <leader>w <Esc>h:w<cr>
(not the additional h for going back one character)?
In order to save time in Vim, I came up with an idea. To map :w key binding to Esc in both normal mode and insert mode. However it only works in insert mode whereas in normal mode things are getting messy when I open a new file. This is what I added in .vimrc:
:inoremap <Esc> <Esc>:w<CR>
:nnoremap <Esc> :w<CR>
As I said the first command alone, works fine. But adding the second command, keys are messed up ESPECIALLY when I open a new file. For instance, although I have explicitly added in .vimrc:
map <up> <nop>
map <down> <nop>
map <left> <nop>
map <right> <nop>
by adding the second command for the normal mode, pressing up down left or right keys cause to enter in insert mode and add A B C D.
Could you help me to achieve my idea?
Information on Vim FAQ 10.9 may be useful:
10.9. When I use my arrow keys, Vim changes modes, inserts weird characters
in my document but doesn't move the cursor properly. What's going on?
There are a couple of things that could be going on: either you are using
Vim over a slow connection or Vim doesn't understand the key sequence that
your keyboard is generating.
If you are working over a slow connection (such as a 2400 bps modem), you
can try to set the 'timeout' or 'ttimeout' option. These options, combined
with the 'timeoutlen' and 'ttimeoutlen' options, may fix the problem.
The preceding procedure will not work correctly if your terminal sends key
codes that Vim does not understand. In this situation, your best option is
to map your key sequence to a matching cursor movement command and save
these mappings in a file. You can then ":source" the file whenever you work
from that terminal.
For more information, read
|'timeout'|
|'ttimeout'|
|'timeoutlen'|
|'ttimeoutlen'|
|:map|
|vt100-cursor-keys|
From :h vt100-cursor-keys:
Other terminals (e.g., vt100 and xterm) have cursor keys that send <Esc>OA,
<Esc>OB, etc. ...
So probably your nnoremap is causing the Esc on the arrow's key sequence to save the file, and the remaining characters are being interpreted alone, so the A is entering insert mode.
You could consider using option 'autowriteall', or using a different mapping to save your file; these are defined in $VIMRUNTIME\mswin.vim:
" Use CTRL-S for saving, also in Insert mode
noremap <C-S> :update<CR>
vnoremap <C-S> <C-C>:update<CR>
inoremap <C-S> <C-O>:update<CR>
The :update command is similar to :w, but only writes only if the file has been modified.
Also, you can use
autocmd InsertLeave * write
I use mappings to normal mode commands that I'd also like to work in insert mode. This can be done by adding <C-o> to insert mode mapping:
nmap <C-Up> 10<Up>
imap <C-Up> <C-o>10<Up>
But this means repeating each mapping twice.
To avoid repetition, I've tried to "overload" some other key, then use it for mode-specific part:
" F12 selects prefix suitable for current mode
nmap <F12> <Nop>
imap <F12> <C-o>
" single mapping relying on "overloaded" F12
map <C-Up> <F12>10<Up>
For some reason, it doesn't work. F2 in insert mode just inserts <F2> as text.
Any idea what's wrong and how to fix it?
Bonus points if you can extend the solution to visual mode.
As ZyX has already pointed out, there is no single :map command for all modes, because it mostly doesn't make sense. If you really want to define a mapping for all modes, use both :map and :map!; see :help map-modes.
As you typically define mappings only once in your .vimrc, I would not worry too much about the little duplication, but if you do, you can use a wrapper function to avoid this:
function! MapBoth(keys, rhs)
execute 'nmap' a:keys a:rhs
execute 'imap' a:keys '<C-o>' . a:rhs
endfunction
call MapBoth('<C-Up>', '10<Up>')
Original
nnoremap <F2> :w<CR>
inoremap <F2> <Esc>:w<CR>a
map sometimes does not set it for all modes. I don't know the exact reason, so to be sure I like to explicitly set all mapping in my configuration file. I suggest that you do the same as there are cases where you can get something unexpected due to different modes. That's why it is important to consider every remapping that you do for each particular mode with care.
In addition, favor *noremap command instead of just *map everywhere you can as recursive mapping is a known source of errors, especially for beginners.
Lastly, I don't know what are you trying to achieve by binding writing of a file in visual mode. Are you aiming for partial buffer writing (it's when you selected something in visual mode, then hit this file-writing shortcut and only selected text is written)? Or do you want the whole file to be written when you are in visual mode, regardless of whether you selected anything or not when you hit the file-writing shortcut? Provide more information on that. Personally, in either case it is weird mapping for visual mode, as it is really not indented for that. It's rather better to keep such stuff in normal mode.
Update
As others have already given exhaustive answers on your question, I just thought that it would be helpful if add my 2 cents, but in slightly different direction. By looking on what you are trying to do, namely mapping navigation features involving arrow keys in insert mode, I can infer that you are very new to Vim. As you probably already know, the philosophy behind Vim is that you should never ever touch mouse during your work inside Vim - call it a kind of golden rule.
What I want to point out now, is what I call a silver rule, and it basically looks like this:
noremap <Up> <Nop>
noremap <Down> <Nop>
noremap <Left> <Nop>
noremap <Right> <Nop>
inoremap <Up> <Nop>
inoremap <Down> <Nop>
inoremap <Left> <Nop>
inoremap <Right> <Nop>
In other words, prevent yourself from using arrow keys (everywhere except command-line mode). Your fingers should always be only in the region of character keys. Vim is all about modes. Insert mode is not for navigation - it is intended for bursts of typing. When you work with code or just text (doesn't matter) you spend most of your time in normal mode - navigating - looking through the file, seeking where to land next in order to edit something, add something, i.e. to do your next input burst for which you switch to insert mode, and when you are finished you switch back to normal mode to look for some more meat - like a predator. :)
So what is it all about? I just want to head you to the right direction right from the beginning. This way you can become intermediate Vim user very quickly - just a few days. In order to get better feeling of all the aforementioned I suggest that you should definitely watch Vim Novice Video Tutorials by Derek Wyatt where he talks about all that stuff in more detail and shows it in action in the screencasts. There are also Intermediate and Advanced tutorials by him which you might also look when you are comfortable with the basics.
I wish you happy vimming! :)
There are no commands to define mappings for all modes: :map maps for normal, operator-pending and visual modes (really visual and select at once) which is clearly stated in documentation. It does not make any sense to have same mapping for all modes, though unlike movement ones saving may be done in all modes with exactly the same rhs:
function s:Save()
update
return ''
endfunction
noremap <expr> <F2> <SID>Save()
noremap! <expr> <F2> <SID>Save()
. noremap! is another multi-mode mapping command, it covers insert and command mode now. You can’t move the cursor from <SID>Save() function (textlock) thus this method is not applicable for cursor movement commands, but you can use variables in order not to repeat the same thing twice:
let s:tendownlhs='10j'
execute ' noremap <C-Down> '.s:tendownlhs
execute 'inoremap <C-Down> <C-o>'.s:tendownlhs
. Now without command mode as this is tricky and likely useless.
If it is okay for the mapping to end up in normal mode, you could combine a for loop with <C-\><C-n> mappings. <C-\><C-n> switches from any mode to normal mode.
For example, this allows switching panes with Alt-{h,j,k,l} from any mode:
for map_command in ['noremap', 'noremap!', 'tnoremap']
execute map_command . ' <silent> <M-h> <C-\><C-n><C-w>h'
execute map_command . ' <silent> <M-j> <C-\><C-n><C-w>j'
execute map_command . ' <silent> <M-k> <C-\><C-n><C-w>k'
execute map_command . ' <silent> <M-l> <C-\><C-n><C-w>l'
endfor
noremap maps in Normal, Visual, and Operator-pending mode
noremap! maps in Insert and Command mode
tnoremap maps in Neovim's Terminal mode
While in Insert Mode in Vim, is there any way to traverse the text moving some characters forward and backward other than using the arrow keys?
If I press h, j, k and l while in Insert mode, the actual characters are printed on screen instead of moving through the text.
The way I'm doing it at the moment is having to resort to Ctrl + [ (Esc) and traversing the text then; but obviously that is not productive.
While it may make sense that you should be able to use the h j k l keys to traverse the editor in insert mode, but that is actually not the way Vim is intended to be used! There are many commands that Vim provides to make editing faster and easier.
The right way is to press Esc, go where you want to do a small correction, fix it, go back and keep editing. It is effective because Vim has much more movements than usual character forward/backward/up/down. After you learn more of them, this will happen to be more productive.
Here are a couple of use-cases:
You accidentally typed "accifentally". No problem, the sequence EscFfrdA will correct the mistake and bring you back to where you were editing. The Ff movement will move your cursor backwards to the first encountered "f" character. Compare that with Ctrl+←→→→→DeldEnd, which does virtually the same in a casual editor, but takes more keystrokes and makes you move your hand out of the alphanumeric area of the keyboard.
You accidentally typed "you accidentally typed", but want to correct it to "you intentionally typed". Then Esc2bcw will erase the word you want to fix and bring you to insert mode, so you can immediately retype it. To get back to editing, just press A instead of End, so you don't have to move your hand to reach the End key.
You accidentally typed "mouse" instead of "mice". No problem - the good old Ctrl+w will delete the previous word without leaving insert mode. And it happens to be much faster to erase a small word than to fix errors within it. I'm so used to it that I had closed the browser page when I was typing this message...!
Repetition count is largely underused. Before making a movement, you can type a number; and the movement will be repeated this number of times. For example, 15h will bring your cursor 15 characters back and 4j will move your cursor 4 lines down. Start using them and you'll get used to it soon. If you made a mistake ten characters back from your cursor, you'll find out that pressing the ← key 10 times is much slower than the iterative approach to moving the cursor. So you can instead quickly type the keys 12h (as a rough of guess how many characters back that you need to move your cursor), and immediately move forward twice with ll to quickly correct the error.
But, if you still want to do small text traversals without leaving insert mode, follow rson's advice and use Ctrl+O. Taking the first example that I mentioned above, Ctrl+OFf will move you to a previous "f" character and leave you in insert mode.
While in insert mode, use CtrlO to go to normal mode for just one command:
CTRL-O h move cursor left
CTRL-O l move cursor right
CTRL-O j move cursor down
CTRL-O k move cursor up
which is probably the simplest way to do what you want and is easy to remember.
Other very useful control keys in insert mode:
CTRL-W delete word to the left of cursor
CTRL-O D delete everything to the right of cursor
CTRL-U delete everything to the left of cursor
CTRL-H backspace/delete
CTRL-J insert newline (easier than reaching for the return key)
CTRL-T indent current line
CTRL-D un-indent current line
these will eliminate many wasteful switches back to normal mode.
Insert mode
Movement
hjkl
Notwithstanding what Pavel Shved said - that it is probably more advisable to get used to Escaping Insert mode - here is an example set of mappings for quick navigation within Insert mode:
" provide hjkl movements in Insert mode via the <Alt> modifier key
inoremap <A-h> <C-o>h
inoremap <A-j> <C-o>j
inoremap <A-k> <C-o>k
inoremap <A-l> <C-o>l
This will make Alt+h in Insert mode go one character left, Alt+j down and so on, analogously to hjkl in Normal mode.
You have to copy that code into your vimrc file to have it loaded every time you start vim (you can open that by typing :new $myvimrc starting in Normal mode).
Any Normal mode movements
Since the Alt modifier key is not mapped (to something important) by default, you can in the same fashion pull other (or all) functionality from Normal mode to Insert mode. E.g.:
Moving to the beginning of the current word with Alt+b:
inoremap <A-b> <C-o>b
inoremap <A-w> <C-o>w
(Other uses of Alt in Insert mode)
It is worth mentioning that there may be better uses for the Alt key than replicating Normal mode behaviour: e.g. here are mappings for copying from an adjacent line the portion from the current column till the end of the line:
" Insert the rest of the line below the cursor.
" Mnemonic: Elevate characters from below line
inoremap <A-e>
\<Esc>
\jl
\y$
\hk
\p
\a
" Insert the rest of the line above the cursor.
" Mnemonic: Y depicts a funnel, through which the above line's characters pour onto the current line.
inoremap <A-y>
\<Esc>
\kl
\y$
\hj
\p
\a
(I used \ line continuation and indentation to increase clarity. The commands are interpreted as if written on a single line.)
Built-in hotkeys for editing
CTRL-H delete the character in front of the cursor (same as <Backspace>)
CTRL-W delete the word in front of the cursor
CTRL-U delete all characters in front of the cursor (influenced by the 'backspace' option)
(There are no notable built-in hotkeys for movement in Insert mode.)
Reference: :help insert-index
Command-line mode
This set of mappings makes the upper Alt+hjkl movements available in the Command-line:
" provide hjkl movements in Command-line mode via the <Alt> modifier key
cnoremap <A-h> <Left>
cnoremap <A-j> <Down>
cnoremap <A-k> <Up>
cnoremap <A-l> <Right>
Alternatively, these mappings add the movements both to Insert mode and Command-line mode in one go:
" provide hjkl movements in Insert mode and Command-line mode via the <Alt> modifier key
noremap! <A-h> <Left>
noremap! <A-j> <Down>
noremap! <A-k> <Up>
noremap! <A-l> <Right>
The mapping commands for pulling Normal mode commands to Command-line mode look a bit different from the Insert mode mapping commands (because Command-line mode lacks Insert mode's Ctrl+O):
" Normal mode command(s) go… --v <-- here
cnoremap <expr> <A-h> &cedit. 'h' .'<C-c>'
cnoremap <expr> <A-j> &cedit. 'j' .'<C-c>'
cnoremap <expr> <A-k> &cedit. 'k' .'<C-c>'
cnoremap <expr> <A-l> &cedit. 'l' .'<C-c>'
cnoremap <expr> <A-b> &cedit. 'b' .'<C-c>'
cnoremap <expr> <A-w> &cedit. 'w' .'<C-c>'
Built-in hotkeys for movement and editing
CTRL-B cursor to beginning of command-line
CTRL-E cursor to end of command-line
CTRL-F opens the command-line window (unless a different key is specified in 'cedit')
CTRL-H delete the character in front of the cursor (same as <Backspace>)
CTRL-W delete the word in front of the cursor
CTRL-U delete all characters in front of the cursor
CTRL-P recall previous command-line from history (that matches pattern in front of the cursor)
CTRL-N recall next command-line from history (that matches pattern in front of the cursor)
<Up> recall previous command-line from history (that matches pattern in front of the cursor)
<Down> recall next command-line from history (that matches pattern in front of the cursor)
<S-Up> recall previous command-line from history
<S-Down> recall next command-line from history
<PageUp> recall previous command-line from history
<PageDown> recall next command-line from history
<S-Left> cursor one word left
<C-Left> cursor one word left
<S-Right> cursor one word right
<C-Right> cursor one word right
<LeftMouse> cursor at mouse click
Reference: :help ex-edit-index
If you are a vim purist, skip reading this answer. OTOH, if you are new to vim and are looking for a few helpful tips you wont find in the many hundred of vim tutorials and blogs, read on... :-)
A few un-orthodox (vim) ways
It's 2014, and as someone who's recently gone back to vim I can offer a few, potentially contrarian, points of view and tips.
Use shift+left or shift+right to traverse words
While repetition is a powerful concept in vim, I (personally) find it strange that using it either forces me to count (lines, characters, words, etc.) or make guesses. My brain usually works like "I want the cursor there" and not like "I want the cursor _5_words_to_the_left_". Quickly being able to move the cursor, and visually observe where the insertion point this way allows me to keep my mind on what I'm editing instead of having to count how many hops I need to make to get to where I need to edit.
Turn on mouse mode, and use the mouse wheel and clicking
...to navigate large bodies of text.
Most (all) modern computers have a touchpad that is closely integrated with the keyboard (e.g. MacBooks). Industrial designers have spent many man years optimizing these designs so that the old problem of having to move the hand away from the keyboard is no longer a real issue. Okay, it is if you are used to a mouse and don't like to switch, but for anyone new to vim (like those that might find this post via a search), this should not be much of an issue.
As a bonus, click + drag puts you in visual mode
With mouse enabled, clicking and dragging has the effect of switching to visual mode and marking a region for yanking.
And use the scroll wheel
Using the mouse (wheel) to scroll around, and clicking to position the cursor (duh) just works. See http://usevim.com/2012/05/16/mouse/ for more on this.
And so...
These are what I'd call more modern (using mouse, scroll wheel, etc.) ways of navigating in vim, equally effective depending on your preference of input.
HTH
Many people in the Vim community argue that you should not navigate in Insert mode, that it is not the Vim way. I think this is an incorrect sentiment learned when transitioning from standard editors to Vim.
Vim is most powerful when you use its tools to create atomic, repeatable actions or finds.
It is ok to navigate while in Insert mode if you are fixing a mistake you made in the same Insert session. You should not navigate outside of the range of text you modified.
If you make a mistake while entering text and escape out of Insert mode to fix it you will not be able to repeat the intended action, . will repeat the correction.
Vim does support many Insert mode navigation keys. Obviously there are the arrow keys, Home, and End, but there are also many other shortcuts. See :h ins-special-keys.
To have a little better navigation in insert mode, why not map some keys?
imap <C-b> <Left>
imap <C-f> <Right>
imap <C-e> <End>
imap <C-a> <Home>
" <C-a> is used to repeat last entered text. Override it, if its not needed
If you can work around making the Meta key work in your terminal, you can mock emacs mode even better. The navigation in normal-mode is way better, but for shorter movements it helps to stay in insert mode.
For longer jumps, I prefer the following default translation:
<Meta-b> maps to <Esc><C-left>
This shifts to normal-mode and goes back a word
In GVim, you can use the mouse. But honestly, what's wrong with using the arrow keys? There's a reason why they are on a keyboard.
I believe Home and End (and PageUp/PageDn) also work normally while in insert mode, but aside from that, I don't believe there are any other standard keys defined for text traversal.
Sorry but vim don't work that way.
You should switch to "normal" mode, navigate and then go back to insert again.
You can create mappings that work in insert mode. The way to do that is via inoremap. Note the 'i' at the beginning of the command (noremap is useful to avoid key map collisions). The corollary is 'n' for 'normal' mode. You can surmise what vim thinks is 'normal' ;)
HOWEVER, you really want to navigate around in text using 'normal' mode. Vim is super at this kind of thing and all that power is available from normal mode. Vim already provides easy ways to get from normal mode to insert mode (e.g., i, I, a, A, o, O). The trick is to make it easy to get into normal mode. The way to do that is to remap escape to a more convient key. But you need one that won't conflict with your regular typing. I use:
inoremap jj <Esc>
Since jj (that's 2 j's typed one after the other quickly) doesn't seem to appear in my vocabulary. Other's will remap to where it's comfortable.
The other essential change I make is to switch the CAPSLOCK and CONTROL keys on my keyboard (using the host computer's keyboard configuration) since I almost never use CAPSLOCK and it has that big, beautiful button right where I want it. (This is common for Emacs users. The downside is when you find yourself on an 'unfixed' keyboard! Aaarggh!)
Once you remap CAPSLOCK, you can comfortably use the following insert mode remappings:
Keeping in mind that some keys are already mapped in insert mode (backwards-kill-word is C-w (Control-w) by default, you might already have the bindings you want. That said, I prefer C-h so in my .vimrc I have:
inoremap <C-h> <C-w>
BUT, you probably want the same muscle memory spasm in normal mode, so I also map C-h as:
nnoremap <C-h> db
(d)elete (b)ackwards accomplishes the same thing with the same key chord. This kind of quick edit is one that I find useful in practice for typos. But stick to normal mode for moving around in text and anything more than killing the previous word. Once you get into the habit of changing modes (using a remap of course), it will be much more efficient than remapping insert mode.
Yes, there is a way. You can use gj and gk inside Insert Mode to move up (backwards) and down (forwards) within a single logical-line that wraps around numerous visual-lines. That is handy if you have very long lines and/or a narrow width terminal and can be much faster than the arrow keys, or hitting ESC to use the other navigation shortcuts. Also you can use CTRL-O to issue one normal-mode command. Neither of these navigation movements will escape you out of insert mode.
It can be disruptive to productivity to hit ESC (which was besides home-row on terminal keyboards when Vi was invented). I work with text files that have extremely long logical-lines, whole paragraphs of sentences full of plain text. These two options are a real time saver for me. It's still handy to escape out to normal-mode if I need to hunt for a particular word within the paragraph, but many times I just need to move a visual-line up or down, and then continue inserting.
I actually edit my .vimrc to map out my nearly useless ALT key, so my left hand presses ALT while my right uses the arrow keys. (and it does not escape out of insert-mode: notice the "i" at the end of each entry).
imap <A-UP> <ESC>gki
imap <A-DOWN> <ESC>gji
I also add lines to .vimrc so that my arrow keys work in normal-mode to traverse up and down within many visual-lines that are contained by one logical-line (the code is identical to the above except you use map or nmap rather than imap) And I use keyboard's other navigation keys with the ALT-KEY, all within insert-mode.
I add additional navigation lines for my ALT key, to use with my keyboards preassigned navigation keys, to navigate more quickly within insert-mode. None of these will escape you out of insert-mode:
" <ALT> navigation within insert-mode
imap <A-UP> <ESC>gki
imap <A-DOWN> <ESC>gji
imap <A-LEFT> <ESC>bi
imap <A-RIGHT> <ESC>ea
imap <A-END> <ESC>A
imap <A-PageUp> <ESC>(i
imap <A-PageDown> <ESC>l)i
imap <A-Home> <Esc>I
" so that <ALT> behaves the same in normal mode
nmap <A-UP> gk
nmap <A-DOWN> gj
nmap <A-LEFT> b
nmap <A-RIGHT> le
nmap <A-END> $
nmap <A-PageUp> (
nmap <A-PageDown> )
nmap <A-Home> ^
My "within" insert-mode navigation short cuts utilize the ALT key with PgUp, PgDn, Home & End keys too, to jump around far more quickly. I use alt-pgup and alt-pgdn presses to jump forward or backward by sentences. And, I use alt-home and alt-end to jump to the beginning and end of my paragraph long logical lines. None of this escapes me out of insert mode. (I figured that I might as well program all the preassigned navigation keys to work quickly within insert-mode, without leaving it). And if I want to move one character at a time, I just let up on the ALT key while still using the arrow keys.
All of those are really simple modifications to the .vimrc. You can get creative and do all sorts of things to improve navigation within insert-mode. Otherwise, if you use the plain ole ARROW keys within insert-mode on long lines, then you need a cup of coffee in your left hand to sip while you hold the arrow keys down with the right. That takes forever!
By the way, the key already works with all the other normal mode navigation commands, like h,j,k,l and w,W,b,B,e and search: /,% etc. EXCEPT that it automatically escapes you out of insert mode without having to press the ESC key. So using with the normal-mode navigation characters will leave you stranded in normal-mode, until you take the effort to press i,I,a,A,o,O again, which I find easy to forget to do.
Since the keyboards preassigned navigation commands: arrows: UP, DOWN, RIGHT, LEFT and PGUP, PGDN, HOME, END don't do anything special with the key, I found that I might as well map them out in .vimrc to help my navigation within insert-mode, while staying within insert-mode. And, to reiterate, its helpful to me because I work with very long text documents that have paragraph long logical-lines that span across a lot of visual-lines, and the arrow keys and h,j,k,l don't acknowledge the visual-lines. This fixes that particular problem, both within insert-mode and normal-mode.
I give credit to my knowledge above, which I found in the book HACKING VIM 7.2 by Kim Schulz
You could use imap to map any key in insert mode to one of the cursor keys. Like so:
imap h <Left>
Now h works like in normal mode, moving the cursor. (Mapping h in this way is obviously a bad choice)
Having said that I do not think the standard way of moving around in text using VIM is "not productive". There are lots of very powerful ways of traversing the text in normal mode (like using w and b, or / and ?, or f and F, etc.)
For some frequently used movements and actions, I have defined the following mappings. This saves a keystroke compared to the CTRL+O combination and since I need them frequently, they pay off in the long
run.
inoremap <A-$> <C-o>$
inoremap <A-^> <C-o>^
inoremap <A-h> <Left>
inoremap <A-l> <Right>
inoremap <A-O> <C-O>O
inoremap <A-o> <C-o>o