i have this in my config file:
nnoremap a a
vnoremap a A
and pressing a in visual mode takes 2 seconds to do the action
why is this happening? is this a bad practice?
This problem is being caused by the fact that you have something else mapped (either in visual mode or in all modes) that starts with 'a'.
Imagine I map 2 different commands in my .vimrc (or as you called it, config file)
vnoremap a A
vnoremap ab D
Here, when I press 'a' in visual mode, I want it to append text.
When I press 'ab' I want it to delete a row for me instead.
I now reach over to my keyboard and I press 'ab'. How does vim know I wanted to delete a line and not just append the letter 'b' to the text? Both require the same keypresses.
So to tell the difference, when I hit the 'a' key, vim waits a second to see which command I choose, If I press 'b' quickly it will realize that this is actually the instruction 'ab' which means 'D' which means delete.
If I press 'a' and wait a second, vim will accept that I was issuing the instruction 'a' which means 'A' which means append. I then hit 'b' and the letter 'b' is appended to the text.
If you want it to stop, you will have to go through your .vimrc and change your mappings to not overlap (start with the same letters) as much, or you can type
:h leader
in vim and learn about mapleaders, which will make it much easier for you to plan your mappings. I have my mapleader set to space personally but many people also like to use commas or some other key of their choosing.
tldr: Vim is waiting a second to see if you are going to press another key and issue a different command
Related
Something has seemingly happened to my vim install, and I'm not exactly sure what. I'm a long time vim user (although I don't use it as a main editor).
When I search:
/foo
I want to edit the location that it found, so I press ESC (in preparation for getting into insert mode). vim now jumps BACK to where I started from in the file. E.g. if I was on line 0 of a 3000 line file, I search for a particular string, find it at line 1700, and want to edit it - ESC takes me back to line 0.
What's going on? Did I accidentally set some strange mode? Or did I forget a hotkey combination that I should know?
This is the expected behaviour with the incsearch option on:
Note that the match will be shown, but the cursor will return to its
original position when no match is found and when pressing <Esc>. You
still need to finish the search command with <Enter> to move the
cursor to the match.
If incsearch is not on then the cursor doesn't jump to the first match at all, it doesn't move until you press <Enter>.
you said
so I press ESC (in preparation for getting into insert mode).
you don't need to press ESC before you can get to insert mode, you need to press enter (known in vim as <CR> for carriage return).
so if you wanted to find foo and start inserting text, type
/foo<CR>i
remember that <CR> is a single pressing of the enter button.
My 'O' command (enter a new line above this one and enter insert mode) is slow to take effect. It seems like this is because there is some other mapping, such as 'OP' , and that vim is waiting when I hit 'O' to see if I want 'O' or 'OP'. I don't know what set this mapping, it's not anything in my .vimrc. I'd like to find it and change it so I can go back to having snappy 'O' commands, but I don't know how to find it.
Is there a way to see a list of what mappings a key is involved with? Note: I do not want to reduce my timeout setting.
Thanks
:verbose map O
tells you which mappings start with O. That usually gives you the right hint about mappings that execute only after a short delay. For the O mapping in particular, you may also suffer from the problem described in delay before o opens a new line.
In vim, is there a command to delete the newline, and all empty space behind the cursor?
Say I stand in the middle of a text in insert mode and press Enter, what command would the reverse what I just did?
A) An example:
"some code{ in here }"
B) After pressing Enter:
"some code{
in here }"
Now pressing backspace will delete one space of the indentation. I would rather have it delete all indentation, and jump back to A.
Can this be done in a command or by doing some remapping to the backspace key?
It's tragic how unknown the J command is. It joins lines in normal mode.
In insert mode, you can press <C-U> twice; first, it'll delete the indent before the cursor, then it'll join with the previous line. Note that this requires
:set backspace=indent,eol,start
did you try J (uppercase) ? it will give exactly what you want.
"some code{ cursor on this line, pressJ
in here }"
You can do ᴇꜱᴄ, K, Shift+J.
K jumps up to the previous line and Shift+J joins the two lines.
However, with properly configured indentation and syntax, a backspace doesn’t just delete a space, it deletes the full previous indentation block.
One easy way is up one line, to end of that line and just delete. As long as you still are in insert mode it will do the same thing as J when deleting at the last position - like most other editors. For me that is the quickest alternative because I'm used to it from other editors.
That is: ↑, End, Delete (when still in insert mode)
One quick alternative (the VIM-way) is (when still in insert mode):
↑, Ctrl+o, J (when still in insert mode)
(Ctrl+o is used in insert mode to enter one normal mode command.)
It's also possible to use a remapping of the backspace key:
inoremap <expr> <bs> getline('.')[:col('.')-2]=~'^\s\+$' ? "<c-u><c-u>" : "<bs>"
Note that this mapping completely overrides the normal behavior the backspace key. This will only be useful when you don't intend to use its normal behavior. This is not recommended if you can easily access the other options (c-u or J)
However, (as far as I know) there's no way to distinguish between manually added leading white spaces and auto indent. If you use noexpandtab, you can edit the regex to only match tabs.
This also does not work in some modes of auto-indent (for example, in block comment in C, vim automatically start a new line starts with *)
Is there a way of repeating a character while in Vim's insert mode? For example, say I would like to insert 80 dashes, in something like emacs I would type:
Ctrl+U 8 0 -
The only way I know how to do it in VIM is to exit normal mode for the repeat argument, then go back into insert mode to type the dash, then exit to insert the actual dashes, AND then go back into insert mode to carry on typing. The sequence is a really long:
Esc 8 0 a - Esc a
It would be nice not to switch in and out of modes.
If you are OK with leaving INSERT mode only once (at the end), this sequence works:
Ctrl+o 80i- Esc
Ctrl+o is used to issue normal commands without leaving INSERT mode,
80 the repetition,
i to insert,
- the character you want to insert,
Esc to leave INSERT mode.
Another one without EVER leaving INSERT mode:
Ctrl+o :norm 8ia Return
Esc nic Esc .
E.g. Esc 4iJ Esc will output JJJJ.
Through single repeat:
Press: i to enter into Insert mode
Press: -
Press: Esc
Press: 80.
It will output: 81 -, like this:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More details about single repeat: :help .
Slightly different version of Eelvex's solution:
function! Repeat()
let times = input("Count: ")
let char = input("Char: ")
exe ":normal a" . repeat(char, times)
endfunction
imap <C-u> <C-o>:call Repeat()<cr>
<ESC>
<the number of times you want to repeat>
i
<the char you want to repeat>
<ESC>
for example: <ESC>12ia<ESC> will insert 12 a's.
You can also do,
Escnihello there EscEsc
where,
n is the number of repeats.
e.g.,
Esc5ihello there EscEsc
I'm surprised no one has suggested this yet:
In Insert mode, use <C-r>=repeat('-', 80)<CR>
That is:
Press Ctrl-r=
At the resulting prompt, enter repeat('-', 80)
Press Enter
Works for repeating any character any number of times.
This uses more keystrokes than #romainl's answer, but does not leave Insert mode at all.
There are many other ways but AFAIK the one you describe is the shortest one. In vim you are mostly supposed to spend your time in command mode, so that would be just 3 keystrokes + the number of repeats (80i-).
However, if you find that you very often use this repeat thing, you can make yourself a function or macro to that end; maybe something like:
:function Repeat(char)
: let counter = input("How many times?: ")
: call feedkeys("i")
: call feedkeys(repeat(a:char,counter))
:endfunction
:imap <C-U> <ESC>h"ryl :call Repeat(#r)<CR>
You said it would be 'nice' to stay in 'Insert' mode, however in Command Mode the following method would avoid your 2nd ESC :-
While I know this post is old, it seems a shame to miss the obvious 'Cut/Copy and Paste' option...
x ...cut
80 ...number of copies
p Paste
Note : This is similar to the method suggested by Martin Beckett, however I get a delay when issuing that command, perhaps because it switches modes several times, this command executes instantly.
Late answer but for what it's worth, if you wanna hand spam it, you can use the
"repeat last command" command: .
i "Phrase" Esc - i to insert, enter phrase/character, esc to go normal mode
. - Spam till you are satisfied. Will repeatedly input the phrase you typed (it repeats your last command).
I find this especially useful when I don't know exactly how many repeats I want to do, but know visually how long I want it to be. Basically blast the . till my eyes are content.
In addition to writing function that will repeat text multiple times, you could use <C-x><C-l>: if you already have line that contains 80 dashes, writing a few dashes at the start of new line and then pressing <C-x><C-l> will complete lines which start with these few dashes which will be likely that line with 80 dashes. I used to write horizontal lines (78 dashes) in help files in a such way.
For such an easy task abbreviation should do the trick. Add the following to your .vimrc
iab <expr> -- repeat('-', 80)
and from now, when you type -- followed by a space (while you are in insert mode), the -- will be automatically converted to - 80 times.
By using the function repeat you are able to repeat the string as many time you want.
Note that you can test it before updating the .vimrc by entering in command mode then issuing the following :iab <expr> -- repeat('-', 80)
I did this without exiting the INSERT mode using the below steps.
Enable INSERT mode.
Type one dash "-".
Ctrl + O
lowercase 'v' (to enter -- (insert) VISUAL -- mode)
lowercase 'y' (to copy)
Ctrl + O
Type 80
Then, followed by lowercase 'p' (for paste).
i - Ctrl+o v y Ctrl+o 80 p
This will print all the dashes horizontally in a single line.
Is possible to insert a line break where the cursor is in Vim without entering into insert mode? Here's an example ([x] means cursor is on x):
if (some_condition) {[ ]return; }
Occasionally, I might want to enter some more code. So I'd press i to get into insert mode, press Enter to insert the line break and then delete the extra space. Next, I'd enter normal mode and position the cursor before the closing brace and then do the same thing to get it on its own line.
I've been doing this a while, but there's surely a better way to do it?
For the example you've given, you could use rEnter to replace a single character (the space) with Enter. Then, fspace. to move forward to the next space and repeat the last command.
Depending on your autoindent settings, the above may or may not indent the return statement properly. If not, then use sEnterTabEsc instead to replace the space with a newline, indent the line, and exit insert mode. You would have to replace the second space with a different command so you couldn't use '.' in this case.
A simple mapping to break the line at the cursor by pressing Ctrl+Enter:
:nmap <c-cr> i<cr><Esc>
essentially enters 'insert' mode, inserts a line break and goes back to normal mode.
put it in your .vimrc file for future use.
Here's how to create a macro that inserts a newline at the cursor whenever you press 'g' while not in insert mode:
From within vim, type:
:map g i[Ctrl+V][Enter][Ctrl+V][Esc][Enter]
Where:
[Ctrl+V] means hold the Ctrl key and press 'v'
[Enter] means press the Enter key
[Esc] means press the Esc key
You'll see the following at the bottom of your vim window until you press the final Enter:
:map g i^M^[
Explanation:
[Ctrl+V] means "quote the following character" -- it allows you to embed the newline and escape characters in the command.
So you're mapping the 'g' key to the sequence: i [Enter] [Escape]
This is vim for insert a newline before the cursor, then exit insert mode.
Tweaks:
You can replace the 'g' with any character that's not already linked to a command you use.
Add more to the command, e.g. f}i^M^[O -- This will find the } and insert another newline, then escape from insert mode and Open an empty line for you to enter more code.
You can add the command to your .vimrc or .exrc file to make it permanent. Just omit the colon from the beginning, so the command starts with "map"
Enjoy!
If you're usually expanding a one line block to three lines, try substitution. Change the opening bracket into bracket/return, and the closing bracket into return/bracket.
The command for substituting bracket/return for bracket looks like this:
:s/{/{\r/
Since you want to use this often, you could map the full sequence to an unused keystroke like this:
:map <F7> :s/{/{\r/ ^M :s/}/\r}/ ^M
Where you see ^M in the sequence, type [Ctrl-V], then press enter.
Now with your cursor anywhere on your sample line, press the mapped key, and the carriage returns are added.
Check :help map-which-keys for advice on selecting unused keystrokes to map.
Assuming you're okay with mapping K to something else (choose a different key of your liking), and using marker ' as a temporary marker is okay why not do this?
:nmap K m'a<CR><Esc>`'
now pressing K in normal mode over the character after which you want the line break to occur will split the line and leave the cursor where it was.
Basically, when you split a line you either want to just insert a carriage return, or in the case that you're on a space, replace that with a carriage return. Well, why settle for one or the other? Here's my mapping for K:
"Have K split lines the way J joins lines
nnoremap <expr>K getline('.')[col('.')-1]==' ' ? "r<CR>" : "i<CR><Esc>"
I use the ternary operator to condense the two actions into one key map. Breaking it down, <expr> means the key map's output can dynamic and in this case hinges on the condition getline('.')[col('.')-1]==' ' which is the long winded way to ask vim if the character under the cursor is a space. Finally, the familiar ternary operator ? : either replaces the space with linebreak (r<CR>) or inserts a new one (i<CR><Esc>)
Now you have a lovely sister key map to the J command.
Vim will automatically kill any whitespace to the right of the cursor if you break a line in two while autoindent (or any other indentation aid) is enabled.
If you do not want to use any of those settings, use s instead of i in order to substitute your new text for the blank rather than just inserting. (If there are multiple blanks, put the cursor on the leftmost and use cw instead.)
In fact you need the following combined operations:
Press v to enter Visual Mode
Select the line you want to split
Press : to enter in Command Mode
s/\s/\r/g
Done
If you have the input:
aaa bbb ccc ddd
and want to output
aaa
bbb
ccc
ddd
You can use the command
f r<ENTER>;.;.
o ESC command will do it for you.
Set this key mapping in your vimrc
:map <C-m> i<CR><Esc>h
Then press Ctrl+m if you want to use it in your vim.
IMHO, the built-in mapping gs is not a useful mapping (put vim to sleep), one could use this for splitting:
nmap gs i<CR><ESC>
In Vrapper you can use gql which will split a line without entering insert mode, but may not always maintain indentation.
I found this to be the most faithful implementation of what I'd expect the opposite behaviour to J
nnoremap S i<cr><esc>^mwgk:silent! s/\v +$//<cr>:noh<cr>`w
It does the simplistic new line at cursor, takes care of any trailing whitespace on the previous line if there are any present and then returns the cursor to the correct position.
i <cr> <esc> - this is one of the most common solutions suggested, it doesn't delete non-whitespace characters under your cursor but it also leaves you with trailing whitespace
^mw - goto start of new line and create a mark under w
gk - go up one line
:silent! s/\v +$//<cr> - regex replace any whitespace at the end of the line
:noh<cr> - Clear any search highlighting that the regex might have turned on
`w - return the the mark under w
Essentially combines the best of both r<esc><cr> and i<cr><esc>
Note: I have this bound to S which potentially overwrites a useful key but it is a synonym for cc and since I don't use it as often as I do splits I am okay with overwriting it.
This mapping will break up any one-line function you have. Simply put your cursor on the line and hit 'g' in normal mode:
:map g ^f{malr<CR>`a%hr<CR>`a
This assumes that you have a space after the opening brace and a space before the closing brace. See if that works for you.