I have been trying to map ctrl s to save during insert mode in vim. It never seem to work
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Map_Ctrl-S_to_save_current_or_new_files (and many other tutorials) does not seem to work
I am using iterm, vim 7, and I have .vimrc file under my current user. I have reloaded my .vimrc with :source $MYVIMRC
Did I do something wrong?
Same thing with mapping any other key. mapping just does not seem to work.
Many keys cannot be intercepted on terminal, because they are interpreted by the terminal and not passed to vim at all. Ctrl-S is one of those keys, meaning "suspend" to most terminals. Either use the GUI version of vim, or select key combinations that work on your terminal.
Related
Lately, when using Vim in tmux over ssh, sometimes something happens where Vim starts ignoring all my mappings that start with Ctrl: for instance <C-P>, which I have bound to the CtrlP plugin. Instead, Vim runs the builtin action (in this case, moving lines upward in the file). I don't doubt that the correct keypress is reaching Vim, as it uses the correct builtin action associated with <C-P> (using :send-keys to send ctrl-p from tmux also causes the builtin <C-P> in vim to run, instead of the mapping).
All my mappings not involving the control key still work. For instance, I can do this:
nnoremap p :echo "test"<cr>, and pressing p echoes test
But then immediately after,
nnoremap <c-p> :echo "test"<cr>, and pressing CTRL-P doesn't echo test, it moves the cursor up one line.
Restarting Vim always fixes the issue, but at some point, something I do causes the problem to surface again. I've been working mostly in tmux through ssh lately, so I'm not 100% sure if either one of those are the problem (although I think I recall this happening once in Vim in tmux not over ssh), but as mentioned above, I believe using send-keys directly from tmux as a test is ensuring that vim is getting the actual ctrl-p keycode. As well, <C-V><C-P> in insert mode does actually insert ^P.
Note that although I've used ctrl-p here as an example, since it's a key I actually use a lot in practice, this applies to any control key mapping.
Is there some kind of Vim state I don't know about that's causing this to happen? Is this likely a terminal problem? What are my next steps?
I am working with vim on debian.
When I press ctrl-] vim beeps, inserts a new line and goes to "visual block". It does not jump to tag. The same happens with :ctrl-]. Even in insert-mode with ctrl-] vim exits from insert-mode, insert new line and goes to 'visual block'.
But when I use such lines in .vimrc
nnoremap <F3> <c-]>
vnoremap <F3> <c-]>
jumping with F3 works.
Command :verbose map c-] returns No mapping found
update:
As we have discovered in insert mode we can see how vim is interpreting <c-]>. In insert mode after <c-V><c-]> the correct output should be ^] . But my output is
t
^C
Screenshots: after <c-v> I get
And after <c-v><c-]> .
So vim isn't receiving the keystrokes properly. How to check what changes input?
try running vim -u NONE to check if that's happening without any configuration, that way you can be sure it's not a mapping or misconfiguration.
if that solves the issue, check your vim configuration!
Also try doing it in gvim and gvim -u NONE to narrow down the issue to what it's very likely to be. If that works it's a shell or terminal misconfiguration.
if it still fails in the windowed GUI of vim, that means this is X that is wrong, try using xev to see what your key outputs, and xmodmap to printout the values assigned to all your keys on your keyboard layout.
Try using another terminal (like urxvt, gnome-terminal, xterm or the raw linux console), to determine whether it's a terminal emulator misconfiguration of your keys or if it's your shell.
if it's your terminal emulator, then get through the configuration or reset its configuration, there's something setup that shouldn't have been.
Try changing shell to see if that improves (by I doubt it will)… And add the following configuration files in your home directory:
.inputrc
Tab: complete
set meta-flag on
set input-meta on
set output-meta on
set convert-meta off
If that's not enough, you might want to check as well you stty settings for your current shell as well.
If none of that helps, then… take a big hammer and hit very hard your keyboard and your computer, that won't solve your situation, but you'll feel better!
HTH
I'm running Vim on a gnome terminal. But the alt key mappings are not working. For example:
:imap <A-i> <Esc>
It works fine in GVim. But when I run the same command with Vim in the gnome terminal it does nothing.
I'm using Windows 7, The problem is with the terminal, right?
The problem
There are two ways for a terminal emulator to send an Alt key (usually called a Meta key as actual terminals didn't have Alt). It can either send 8 bit characters and set the high bit when Alt is used, or it can use escape sequences, sending Alt-a as <Esc>a. Vim expects to see the 8 bit encoding rather than the escape sequence.
Some terminal emulators such as xterm can be set to use either mode, but Gnome terminal doesn't offer any such setting. To be honest in these days of Unicode editing, the 8-bit encoding is not such a good idea anyway. But escape sequences are not problem free either; they offer no way of distinguishing between <Esc>j meaning Alt-j vs pressing Esc followed by j.
In earlier terminal use, typing Escj was another way to send a Meta on a keyboard without a Meta key, but this doesn't fit well with vi's use of Esc to leave insert mode.
The solution
It is possible to work around this by configuring vim to map the escape sequences to their Alt combinations.
Add this to your .vimrc:
let c='a'
while c <= 'z'
exec "set <A-".c.">=\e".c
exec "imap \e".c." <A-".c.">"
let c = nr2char(1+char2nr(c))
endw
set timeout ttimeoutlen=50
Alt-letter will now be recognised by vi in a terminal as well as by gvim. The timeout settings are used to work around the ambiguity with escape sequences. Esc and j sent within 50ms will be mapped to <A-j>, greater than 50ms will count as separate keys. That should be enough time to distinguish between Meta encoding and hitting two keys.
If you don't like having timout set, which times out for other mapped key sequences (after a second by default), then you can use ttimeout instead. ttimeout applies only to key codes and not other mappings.
set ttimeout ttimeoutlen=50
For Gnome-terminal, use the following instead:
imap ^[i <Esc>
^[i should be typed by pressing Ctrl-v Alt-i
Attention: You need to yank and put in Vim when you want to copy it elsewhere. If you just copy the mapping in an editor like gedit, the mapping will probably be broken.
EDIT here is an example which makes Alt-k add an empty line above the cursor, and Alt-j add an empty line after the current line.
" Alt-j/k to add a blank line
if has('gui_running')
" the following two lines do not work in vim, but work in Gvim
nnoremap <silent><A-j> :set paste<CR>m`o<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
nnoremap <silent><A-k> :set paste<CR>m`O<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
else
" these two work in vim
" shrtcut with alt key: press Ctrl-v then Alt-k
" ATTENTION: the following two lines should not be
" edited under other editors like gedit. ^[k and ^[j will be broken!
nnoremap ^[k :set paste<CR>m`O<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
nnoremap ^[j :set paste<CR>m`o<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
endif
Try
<m-i>
Or, if typing alti inserts a character (like in my case, it inserts a carret: ˆ) just map to that character:
:inoremap ˆ <esc>
Be careful, because this one wouldn't work (at least in my system, MacOS 10.6). The caret waits for a letter, because it's not exactly a caret, it is a circumflex.
It may be that the shortcuts are actually from the Gnome Desktop. Try looking at the Gnome Keyboard Shortcuts tool (System menu, Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts), which lets you view and modify the shortcuts defined on Gnome Desktop. If the key combination is assigned to a function on Gnome Desktop, then remove it and then that key combo should filter down to Vim properly.
Or you may be right that it is a problem of the terminal. Not all terminals support all key combos. Your problem may be the one described in the Vim help docs at :h map-alt-keys. The docs provide a workaround, but not a very good one.
The same thing happens to me. I searched on Google with "gnome terminal alt key", and found that someone asked almost the same question: "How to disable the alt-hotkey behavior on gnome terminal?" in the first link found. (The second link is just this question)
So, maybe you can try that:
Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and uncheck "Enable menu access keys"
Take a look at section 1.10 of http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/map.html. It seems to indicate that gnome-terminal automatically escapes the Alt modifier, so that it doesn't switch the byte sent in the way that Vim is expecting. The document seems to indicate that there isn't really a way around this except for using a different terminal (such as xterm).
This is certainly frustrating because so far as I can tell Linux machines are also incapable of using the D (Mac's Command or Linux's Super) bindings, so at least as far as the terminal goes, we are limited to Shift and Ctrl modifiers, which is frustrating if we want to ensure that we can use all the commands we use in Gvim on terminal Vim (at least without switching terminals, towards which I'm perhaps overly stubborn - gnome-terminal is just so much prettier). I've been looking for a way around this but have been unable to find anything.
I'm running Vim on a gnome terminal. But the alt key mappings are not working. For example:
:imap <A-i> <Esc>
It works fine in GVim. But when I run the same command with Vim in the gnome terminal it does nothing.
I'm using Windows 7, The problem is with the terminal, right?
The problem
There are two ways for a terminal emulator to send an Alt key (usually called a Meta key as actual terminals didn't have Alt). It can either send 8 bit characters and set the high bit when Alt is used, or it can use escape sequences, sending Alt-a as <Esc>a. Vim expects to see the 8 bit encoding rather than the escape sequence.
Some terminal emulators such as xterm can be set to use either mode, but Gnome terminal doesn't offer any such setting. To be honest in these days of Unicode editing, the 8-bit encoding is not such a good idea anyway. But escape sequences are not problem free either; they offer no way of distinguishing between <Esc>j meaning Alt-j vs pressing Esc followed by j.
In earlier terminal use, typing Escj was another way to send a Meta on a keyboard without a Meta key, but this doesn't fit well with vi's use of Esc to leave insert mode.
The solution
It is possible to work around this by configuring vim to map the escape sequences to their Alt combinations.
Add this to your .vimrc:
let c='a'
while c <= 'z'
exec "set <A-".c.">=\e".c
exec "imap \e".c." <A-".c.">"
let c = nr2char(1+char2nr(c))
endw
set timeout ttimeoutlen=50
Alt-letter will now be recognised by vi in a terminal as well as by gvim. The timeout settings are used to work around the ambiguity with escape sequences. Esc and j sent within 50ms will be mapped to <A-j>, greater than 50ms will count as separate keys. That should be enough time to distinguish between Meta encoding and hitting two keys.
If you don't like having timout set, which times out for other mapped key sequences (after a second by default), then you can use ttimeout instead. ttimeout applies only to key codes and not other mappings.
set ttimeout ttimeoutlen=50
For Gnome-terminal, use the following instead:
imap ^[i <Esc>
^[i should be typed by pressing Ctrl-v Alt-i
Attention: You need to yank and put in Vim when you want to copy it elsewhere. If you just copy the mapping in an editor like gedit, the mapping will probably be broken.
EDIT here is an example which makes Alt-k add an empty line above the cursor, and Alt-j add an empty line after the current line.
" Alt-j/k to add a blank line
if has('gui_running')
" the following two lines do not work in vim, but work in Gvim
nnoremap <silent><A-j> :set paste<CR>m`o<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
nnoremap <silent><A-k> :set paste<CR>m`O<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
else
" these two work in vim
" shrtcut with alt key: press Ctrl-v then Alt-k
" ATTENTION: the following two lines should not be
" edited under other editors like gedit. ^[k and ^[j will be broken!
nnoremap ^[k :set paste<CR>m`O<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
nnoremap ^[j :set paste<CR>m`o<Esc>``:set nopaste<CR>
endif
Try
<m-i>
Or, if typing alti inserts a character (like in my case, it inserts a carret: ˆ) just map to that character:
:inoremap ˆ <esc>
Be careful, because this one wouldn't work (at least in my system, MacOS 10.6). The caret waits for a letter, because it's not exactly a caret, it is a circumflex.
It may be that the shortcuts are actually from the Gnome Desktop. Try looking at the Gnome Keyboard Shortcuts tool (System menu, Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts), which lets you view and modify the shortcuts defined on Gnome Desktop. If the key combination is assigned to a function on Gnome Desktop, then remove it and then that key combo should filter down to Vim properly.
Or you may be right that it is a problem of the terminal. Not all terminals support all key combos. Your problem may be the one described in the Vim help docs at :h map-alt-keys. The docs provide a workaround, but not a very good one.
The same thing happens to me. I searched on Google with "gnome terminal alt key", and found that someone asked almost the same question: "How to disable the alt-hotkey behavior on gnome terminal?" in the first link found. (The second link is just this question)
So, maybe you can try that:
Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and uncheck "Enable menu access keys"
Take a look at section 1.10 of http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/map.html. It seems to indicate that gnome-terminal automatically escapes the Alt modifier, so that it doesn't switch the byte sent in the way that Vim is expecting. The document seems to indicate that there isn't really a way around this except for using a different terminal (such as xterm).
This is certainly frustrating because so far as I can tell Linux machines are also incapable of using the D (Mac's Command or Linux's Super) bindings, so at least as far as the terminal goes, we are limited to Shift and Ctrl modifiers, which is frustrating if we want to ensure that we can use all the commands we use in Gvim on terminal Vim (at least without switching terminals, towards which I'm perhaps overly stubborn - gnome-terminal is just so much prettier). I've been looking for a way around this but have been unable to find anything.
I would like to have a mapping to quickly quit all buffers, for use when I'm vimdiffing a lot of files. Control and a function key together proved a good safety, so that I don't accidentally hit this combination, unintentionally leaving Vim. I tried the following mapping:
map <C-F10> :qa<CR>
To no avail. If I ditch the control, I can quit with F10 alone—why doesn't control work with F10 in my mapping?
I suspect you are using vim and not gvim. vim keybindings are limited by the terminal we are running vim within.
I've given up on vim, and I systematically use gvim for that reason.
Luc is right - I just tried that in gvim (well, MacVim) and it worked fine. Then I tried it in the terminal with no joy.