Okay, so I've been trying out Vim (the standard console version; my OS is Linux Mint 13) and I'd like to get rid of having to use the Escape key to change modes. Preferably, I'd like to swap the Capslock and Escape keys, but as far as I've heard, that's not possible within Vim itself. Most "solutions" I've found involve changing the key on a global level (using xmodmap or whatever), but I don't really want that. If there's an easy way to swap Capslock and Escape only in Vim, please let me know.
Another common thing I've heard of is using "Ctrl-[" as an equivalent to Escape. However, because I'm using a German keyboard with a different layout, that's not an option. So, I thought I'd use noremap <C-ü> <Esc> in Vim (the "ü" key on a German keyboard is in the same place as the "[" key on US keyboards), but that didn't work, either. I'm assuming that's because "ü" isn't an ASCII character. Is there any way to get either of these options working?
UPDATE: Well, this is strange. After experimenting some more, it seems that "Ctrl-ü" does work after all. I'm not sure what happened – maybe I messed up some encoding-related settings while trying different things? If there is no good solution for remapping capslock, I guess I will stick with "Ctrl-ü".
So, yeah, eventually I decided to go with <C-ü> because it doesn't conflict with anything else and because it's the same as <C-[> on US keyboards.
However, because I'm getting tired of using the German keyboard layout for programming (for example, to get "{" you need to type "Alt Gr-7"), I'm switching my keyboard to US-International, which essentially has a similar effect as far as Vim is concerned. It also helps if you want to want to get into the habit of touch-typing; you actually can't look at the keyboard because the keys aren't labeled "correctly" ;-)
A lot of people use jk:
inoremap jk <Esc>
You can also simply do <C-c>.
Here is another alternative that may be useful to you! It involves changing the keyboard file related to VIM. I found this suggestion on this youtube video
$ cd /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/
sudo vim pc
to edit the capslock key to escape, change the capslock line to read as follows:
key <CAPS> { [ Escape ] };
:wq # to write and close the file
Log out and log back into the machine and it should be updated!
Related
Sorry for a noob question, but i find it struggling to just put a ";" at the end of line after writing a function. For example, I am coding in C and many time i need to write things like:
f(a);
what i usually type is (from normal mode, using bracket autopair-like feature):
if(a<ESC><SHIFT-a>;
and it need changing mode twice! Comparing to normal editor (sublime):
f(a<right>;
does anyone have more efficient way do do those typing? thanks for any help.
I think you have some "auto-close" plugin installed.
I have that kind of plugin too, and I don't press arrow keys either, since I don't have them on my keyboard. I have this:
" moving cursor out of (right of ) autoClosed brackets
inoremap <c-l> <esc>%%a
So with your example: it would be (assume already in INSERT mode)
f(a<ctrl-l>;
Thus, your fingers never leave the home row.
If you're a vim user, you can hit Shift-a.
Shift-a takes you from normal mode to insert mode, and starts your cursor at the end of the line.
(If you want to be an efficient vim user, you should remap esc to something like caps-lock.)
Comparing to normal editor (sublime):
f(a<right>;
Well… that's exactly how you would do it in Vim if you use Delimitmate or some other "autoclosing" plugin. Why do you insist on making things more complicated than they are?
While vim's way of doing things is generally good, I feel like there are aspects that really get in the way as somebody who is not completely committed to vim for text-editing.
This means that I am hitting Esc+/ and typing slashes into files in Sublime Text, and hitting Ctrl+F in vim, scrolling down a page.
Similar things happen with Ctrl+S and :w and custom mapping ; to : still doesn't make it as convenient and fail-safe as Ctrl+S. Not to mention in PuTTY, Ctrl+S does something rather upsetting (it suspends output from the terminal till Ctrl+Q is pressed). Basically, IMHO some things (like switching to a "find mode" and saving the file) are good to attach to a global left-hand home-row shortcut chord rather than requiring the user to mess about in a modal command line. It simply is too often used to subject the user to these mode changes. I suppose this isnt a legitimate complaint because the entirety of vim is constructed around the modal concept, and these functionalities are a result of that.
In any case I'd like to make it a bit easier on my brain because I've tried for a while now to keep it all intact and it's simply too much (I have more or less internalized the switching between Ctrl on a windows machine on a desktop keyboard and the use of the thumb for the Cmd on my Macbook, but this modal text editor business seems to be too much). It did not take too much deliberation for me to decide that global homerow key chords are simply more intuitive.
Mapping Ctrl+S to :w is trivial, so the question here is about the find mode. I want to bind Ctrl+F to put me in find mode, but repeating it should not type slashes into the find command. Can this be done? Is there perhaps a colon-command that when executed simply drops me into the current find-command-buffer-thing?
In your .vimrc add:
inoremap <C-f> <Esc>/
noremap <C-f> <Esc>/
In whatever mode you are in, this will put you in "find" mode (it actually just types a slash in the command line which you can use to search). With these bindings it will work for all modes, even if you are in insert mode.
do you want this?
nnoremap <c-f> /
if you like you can also try
nnoremap <c-f> q/
the 2nd mapping brings you to a search history window. you could choose previous search keywords/patterns. also available to type new pattern (by pressing i)
btw, there is no find mode
Mappings can be defined separately for the different modes in Vim, see :help map-modes. This automatically takes care of your proposed <C-f> mapping: Initially, you're in normal mode, then the search pattern is entered in command-line mode.
If you so far only occasionally use Vim, and find it too "different", several things may make the switch easier:
easy Vim (evim or vim -y) defaults to insert mode
on Windows, :behave mswin and the $VIMRUNTIME/mswin.vim script create some common Windows shortcuts
graphical GVIM has menu items like Edit > Find... and toolbars.
Some things like the flow-control freeze on <C-s> in terminals are unfortunate, mostly historical accidents; you can't blame Vim for those.
You don't need to map anything. / is expressive enough and is definitely not slower than <C-f>. Same for <C-s> which, despite a certain familiarity, is not much better than :w<CR>. You are learning a new tool, remember?
What you should focus your efforts on is getting confortable with Vim's modality. The simple fact that, for you, doing a search involves hitting <Esc> is a sign that you didn't get that part. Your other comments on using Vim shortcuts in ST and ST shortcut in Vim are not good signs either and the part where you complain about having to adjust to your Mac's Cmd is the icing on the cake, IMO.
It may sound brutal but, from your question, it seems like you are doing too much at the same time, without organization and for, probably, no good reasons.
Switching from Windows to Mac OS X and switching from ST2 to Vim at the same time is sure to be confusing and I suggest you slow down a little and make a choice before you loose your mind and waste more of your time.
Which leads me to this: Why do you use a Mac and why are you using Vim?
Windows is a fine OS. Sublime is a fine editor. Even if you switch to the Mac, Sublime works very well there. So Why Vim?
If you are tired by some Sublime limitations and want the awesome power of Vim, fine. But you must wrap your head around its modality and awkwardness and accept to change your habit.
If you don't approach Vim with more flexibility, you'll never get full benefits.
If you decided to use Vim because it is trendy, I'll respectfully suggest you to stop there and go back to Sublime. Vim is weird, Vim is different, Vim is huge, Vim is a rabbit hole… if you are not ready to work with it and insist on not accepting its core design, you won't get far so why bother? You can pretty much live all your professional carreer without ever touching Vim. There's no shame in that.
Remapping / to <C-f>, on the other hand…
I hope this does not come across as an attempt to spark conversation purely for the sake of doing so.
I use vim a great deal (5-10 hours a day) and I noticed my left wrist is the first to start aching. The standard keyboard layout (see image below) is almost guaranteed to give you arthritis.
Currently, I have remapped
Ctrl to Shift
Shift to Caps Lock
Caps Lock to Ctrl
This helps with common commands such as Ctrlf or Shift2 (#), but I still have to twist my wrist to get at those combinations. Is there anyway to remap the keys so as to avoid this twisting on the left wrist (maybe use the Tab key)? I just find it odd that for a text editor designed specifically for programmers, it would make heavy use of these out of the way keys. I have considered remapping to the old keyboard layout (see below image), but I don't want to learn that if it is going to have the same fundamental problems as my current remapping.
Note: I am not a doctor, just another typist that suffered from wrist pain.
In my experience, just mapping Caps to Ctrl (or swapping the two if you must have a Caps) and using Ctrl+[ instead of Esc make a big difference. Ctrl+[ does not require an additional mapping in vim as it is equivalent to Esc. If you can teach yourself this small change you reduce your movement by a great deal when you consider how often you use Esc in vim.
The Caps to Ctrl mapping can't be done inside vim and will have to be made system-wide, however, having Ctrl in the more convenient location will also help in other applications that use Ctrl combinations. There are different methods of remapping keys depending on which OS you're using. A few common options are:
xmodmap (GNU/Linux)
KeyRemap4Macbook (OSX)
KeyTweak (Windows)
While this will probably improve your situation you really should consider seeing a doctor and/or purchasing a more ergonomically designed keyboard if your pain persists. I own an older version of the Kinesis Advantage that I picked up used on Ebay for about $100 (USD) and I couldn't be happier. The keys can be programmed directly on the keyboard so no software is needed to swap keys or create your own keyboard macros for frequently used key strokes.
Edit: I see in your post you also mention combinations like Ctrl+f and Shift+2 requiring you to twist your wrist to press. It sounds to me like you're only using the Ctrl and Shift keys on the left side of your keyboard. You should really be using both sets of these keys, using whichever one is on the opposite hand of the key you're modifying. That would negate this wrist movement.
Use caps as ctrl systemwide. (How often do you cut/copy/paste?)
This also makes ctrl[ work in vim.
Alongside I use the vim 'arpeggio' plugin.
Arpeggio lets you define vim bindings that are activated when two keys are simultanously pressed.
jk pressed serves me as ESC.
Also the 'surround.vim' plugin might be interesting for you.
Eliminated all my wrist pains.
post scriptum:
Use 'vundle'!
Its the best vim plugin manager by far, and you will wonder how you could ever do without, especially if you use a customized vim on several machines. Don't be scared if you have trouble setting it up initially, take your time.
I switched to a Kinesis Advantage keyboard, and remapped Caps Lock to Esc. This effectively removed any wrist pain I felt as a vim user.Once again not a doctor, but looking at how my hands move, I don't see my wrist twisting even when I hit Shift.
You could probably do some great remappings to the thumb keys to further minimise tension, but to be honest I've never felt the need.
Not a $0 solution, I'm afraid, but it was very effective for me.
I mapped both Escape (single tap) and Ctrl (hold) to CapsLock:
xmodmap -e "remove Lock = Caps_Lock"
xmodmap -e "remove Control = Control_L"
xmodmap -e "keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock"
xmodmap -e "keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L"
xmodmap -e "add Control = Control_L"
xcape -t 1000 -e "Control_L=Escape" # Fire nothing if 1000ms hold time out
Probably I'm messing things up here, but xmodmap isn't the best option to modify mappings anyway, so I will change that to pure xkb config.
I have also swapped : with ; and ` with ~, since I use : and ~ more often:
xmodmap -e "keycode 47 = colon semicolon"
xmodmap -e "keycode 49 = asciitilde grave"
I also use Compose Key to be able to type ūmlauts et c.
In vim, the most useful change I have ever made is mapping of space to leader. All kinds of leader-key combinations will make your life easier.
I couldn't get used to H and L for _ and $, since it doesn't seem to work with surround.vim and some other tricks people advise.
Just don't use arrows!
I'd make this part a comment to Randy's answer on Esc if I could, but it demands a little more space. There's one important use case where you can't just remap Windows keys: Windows 7 without admin rights. It's common enough in an enterprise environment; at the very least, it describes me and that keyboard in the pic. keymapper's repo has decent info on this issue:
Important note for Windows 7 Users
Windows 7 does not support per-user key mappings. Until the next release of Key Mapper, you will have to manually switch to 'Boot' mappings from the Mappings menu, reboot to change the mappings, and you will need to have Administrative access to your computer to set key mappings that will work in Windows 7.
The same is true for any Microsoft tools, KeyTweak, SharpKey, etc.
So you'll have to use something like AutoHotkey. I personally prefer mapping Caps Lock directly to Esc for Vim, and I've had issues just mapping it to Ctrl:
#IfWinActive ahk_class Vim
*CapsLock::Esc
#IfWinActive
Another alternative I like is inoremap jj <Esc>. Unless you plan to write about a hajj or something it works pretty well.
More to your point
In any case, have you considered doing the above for easy escaping and then remapping some of the hard-to-reach insert mode commands to Alt (hit it with your thumb) and then using mappings to your leader?
let mapleader=","
nnoremap <leader>f <C-F>
I would suggest remapping
Caps lock to left Control
Left Control to Escape
Escape to Caps lock
. If in linux first can be done by using setxkbmap -option '...,ctrl:nocaps' or changing XkbOptions in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Second requires using of xmodmap. After some X server update I failed to get the third working, previously used xmodmap as well.
Using dvorak layout (maybe even programming) that is optimized for touch typing and mappings like ,s->()<Left> might also help.
Note: I am not a doctor as well. I am touch typist, but unlike #Randy Morris I never suffered from the wrist pain, just moved keys to the most convenient locations.
I always press the left ctrl key by curling up my pinky and pressing with the first knuckle. I find this requires less hand movement.
Update
I don't find Shift uncomfortable, so I can't help you with
that. However Ctrl does bother me, and even with my
knuckle technique I prefer to avoid it where possible. So for
insert mode (and command-line mode) I use a leading ;
instead of Ctrl. E.g.
:map! ;w <C-W>
:map! ;a <C-A>
:map! ;r <C-R>
:ino ;t <C-T>
:ino ;d <C-D>
You get the idea.
In normal mode I use v and V instead of Ctrl+F and
Ctrl+B (I only use visual blockwise mode), though
I imagine most people would prefer to map different keys,
such as <Space> and - for paging (- isn't really
needed). Instead of F you could search forwards with f,
and then hit ,.
I've never really seen much point in Ctrl+D or Ctrl+U.
However I do find z., z<Enter>, and z- useful for
scrolling the line with the cursor to the middle, top, and
bottom of the window respectively. H, M and L are also
useful for moving the cursor around the screen. But in
general I prefer to just use / with 'incsearch' set for
navigating about.
There's no right or wrong way to do this, these are just my personal preferences, but I hope it gives you one or
two ideas. Try experimenting and see what works for you.
I've developed a vim module to do some simple remappings for exactly this issue:
https://github.com/vim-scripts/vim.ergonomic
The biggest things it does is make it easier to type bracket sets. It also makes it much easier to get into command mode (jj->ESC)
It runs on the principle that you hardly ever used the J key while editing, but it is right there in the home row... so let's abuse it!
from the documentation:
Remapping commonly used commands
key combo mapping purpose
; : removes the need to hit Shift to use commands
jj <ESC> can exit edit mode quickly and easily
Jj j can type 'j' when you need to
JJ J can type 'J' when you need to
Making it easier to insert various kinds of braces:
key combo mapping purpose
JU ()<left> easier to create parenthesis
JI []<left> easier to create square brackets
JM {}<left> eaiser to create curly braces
J< <><left> easier to create carrot braces
Make it easier to move small distances (especially useful with braces commands):
key combo mapping purpose
JL <left> move left in insert mode
JH <right> move right in insert mode
Removing any need for enter, backspace or delete:
key combo mapping purpose
JB <esc>ldbi delete the previous word
JW <esc>dwi delete the next word
JO <esc>oi insert line and go to it
I noticed that iTerm2 offers the very convenient feature of using "Option key as +ESC" (or as meta, but apparently that's obsolete).
I tried them both and the option key works as expected in Bash (set -o emacs mode) and Emacs, but not in Vim. Thus, I can't make use of any "M-" bindings.
What I've found is that:
if I set option to "+ESC", vim just understands ESC+key, and has no idea I actually meant Meta-key.
if I set option to "meta", keys modified with "option" behave just as without a modifier (don't know how to formally test what vim understands from a key combination that I'm typing).
"M-" mappings work perfectly in MacVim (7.3.53), but that's outside of a console and not in the scope of this question.
I'm interested in how to make those mappings work in Vim, under iTerm2 or Terminal.
My specs:
MAC OS X Lion 10.7.2
iTerm2 1.0.0.20111020
vim #7.3.107_0+python26 [though MacPorts]
I've downloaded the latest iTerm2 and tried to see what it sent to/what was printed by Vim (i<C-v><M-a>) with the following settings:
Option as Option:
Vim prints æ which is normal and expected on my french keyboard
Option as Meta:
Vim stays there, waiting for something to happen. Nothing is printed. If I press Option and a in sequence I just obtain a. Pressing Option and a in some random order may print á, which is weird and totally unexpected.
Option as +ESC:
Vim prints ^[a which means "Escape character followed by the character a".
From these tests it appears that Vim will never ever receive <M-> without some hypothetical black magic.
If you stick with "Option as +ESC", it seems that you will have to change all your custom <M-something> mappings to <Esc>something. This may work but it will make writing any kind of prose in any non-english language a pain.
What I do: I leave the Option key as it is so that I can type characters like œ…«» easily and I use <Leader> (mapped to ,, see :help mapleader) for all my custom mappings.
Some people here like to reserve it for plugins and advocate a somewhat simpler and potentially safer approach.
inoremap <leader>, <C-x><C-o> "my way (copied elsewhere)
inoremap ,, <C-x><C-o> "another way
I left my option key to act as Normal and discovered that Vim saw them as <T- bindings. So, for example, I have this mapping setup in my .vimrc to move to the end of a word when in Insert mode:
noremap! <T-Right> <C-o><Right>;
I've been using Vim exclusively for a few weeks now, and a few things are keeping me from being very excited about my experience so far. For one, I am having trouble mapping a few key sequences to commands.
I'd like to map Ctrl+Shift+Z to :redo<CR> or alternately <C-R>, but apparently Vim is not able to recognize the difference between shifted and un-shifted control-key sequences:
Ctrl-b and Ctrl-B are synonymous, they both mean 0x02. This cannot be
changed, it goes back to ASCII, which dates back to 7-hole paper tape
(not counting parity).
This just seems silly to me. We've come a long way since 7-hole paper tape, and in my experience MANY programs recognize the difference between <C-S-Z> and <C-Z>. Indeed, MacVim even recognizes the difference! But no joy in GVim or in the GNOME Terminal. Is there a way around this? Maybe a plugin or even some compile-time option?
The other key combo that I'm having trouble with is Ctrl+, (control+comma). I'm not sure if I've got something configured wrong in my .vimrc, or if it's a real issue with Vim, but I cannot get <C-,> to respond after mapping it (for example: map <C-,> :TComment<CR>). FWIW, I have my leader key remapped to ;. Am I doing it wrong? Or is there some other reason why Vim won't recognize the <C-,> key combo?
I've spent way too much time googling and fiddling with key mappings, and I'm on the verge of declaring that Vim is not as flexible as I've been led to believe... I can't even get it configured with the key mappings I'm used to, some of which I am reluctant to re/unlearn since they work in other programs that I use daily.
It looks like the link you posted already answers your question regarding <C-b> vs. <C-B>. According to the FAQ it looks like you're out of luck with <C-,> as well, since this key combination is not in the list of Ctrl-printable-key chords that Vim can detect (possibly because it's not even a printable ASCII chord?).
Key combinations such as <C-S-w> are very un-Vim-like in that they undermine the efficiency of a modal editor. Of course there are times when <CTRL>-escaped combinations are necessary (for example in insert-mode mappings such as <C-x>-<C-o> for omnicompletion), but that's not the case for operations such as undo and redo.
I'm sorry that this reply won't satisfy you, but in the long run there is much to be gained from "doing it the Vim way", rather than trying to bend Vim to your will.
Try adding set nocompatable to your vimrc. without this you are basically running vi wich is much more limited than vim. This should allow you to map <C-S-r> or <F11> or whatever else you want.
Tjameson is completely right. it is much better to use the default mappings where they exist.