Handy Keymaps in Vim

https://aonemd.github.io/blog/handy-keymaps-in-vim

by axiomdata316 • 7 years ago

59 37 7 years ago

aonemd.github.io

franey• 7 years ago

By far my favourite remap in (Neo)vim is to map : to ; and ; to ,

I don't know how many thousand key presses I've saved by not having to hit "Shift" for every command.

    " Use ; rather than : for commands
    nore ; :
    nore , ;

flukus• 7 years ago

I just switch ':' and ';' along with '-' and '_' in insert mode, cut's out probably 90% of shift key presses. Swapping the numbers and their shift counterparts would probably save another 90%.

boomlinde4• 7 years ago

YMMV depending on what you are actually typing, though. I think I tend to spend significantly less time issuing ex commands than I spend actually typing things.

joeldo2• 7 years ago

I've found a system wide mapping of 'Caps Lock' to 'Esc'(and vice versa) a much better use of keyboard estate / ergonomics.

Although the mapping was prompted by Vim usage, it's surprisingly useful for general computing as well.

gh02t• 7 years ago

Me too. I put escape on my caps lock key on my Ergodox and it's awesome. I miss it whenever I use another keyboard. Escape gets a lot of use everywhere and is in kind of an awkward spot, while for me at least caps lock is literally never used and is in a very comfortable spot.

devposter2• 7 years ago

Me too. When I get a new system, the first thing I do is map CapsLock to Escape.

On Windows, I use the Uncap [ https://github.com/susam/uncap ] tool because it does not require install or restart. The tool has good documentation to map CapsLock to Escape for Linux and MacOS too.

On the flip side, I struggle to use Vim when I need to do so someone else's computer. :-D

patrickdavey3• 7 years ago

My favourite mapping for 'Esc' usage is to map kj to Escape ... super handy

noremap! kj <esc>

https://github.com/patrickdavey/dotfiles/blob/058950c2f470a1...

runald• 7 years ago

What if you need to type something like blackjack?

sirsuki2• 7 years ago

I found jk to be the best. If I use it in normal mode it is a no op (cursor up and down). The english language (and most all programming languages) don’t have words with a jk sequence in them (unlike kj). It works universally across all keyboards and terminals. My fingers are already there (unlike esc which is just as bad as lifting my hands to use the mouse). Plus in the rare case I do need jk inputed (very very rare) first the default is a safe default (esc) and second the mental load to pause while typing (pressing j wait past the half second timeout then press k) is no different then the mental load to choose to accept the expansion of abbreviations or delay typing to get around the auto expansion triggers.

Jk for the win!!! (Also jj works well to).

I also set my mapleader to <Space> you would be surprised how useful that is. Not to mention , (comma) is a valid and useful vi movement key.

boomlinde4• 7 years ago

IMO making it a control key is a better choice (I tried both at some point) because chording with awkward keys is worse than just pressing them, and the control keys are placed awkwardly on most keyboards. Since you can end insertion mode with ^[ you then have a pretty comfortable chord that doesn't stray far from the home row to replace the escape key.

I had a tool on a mac that would make caps lock equivalent to escape if it was pressed and released alone, and control if it was chorded. Sounded great on paper but I underestimated how often i press control before realizing I don't want to perform a chord.

neonroku• 7 years ago

Karabiner Elements is great for doing this kind of remapping on macOS

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

The equivalent for Windows would probably be AutoHotkey

https://www.autohotkey.com/

joeldo2• 7 years ago

That's an interesting idea as well. I've always found reaching for the 'Esc' key to be more awkward than the 'ctrl' key, but undoubtedly I use the 'ctrl' key more often than the 'esc' key outside of Vim, so perhaps the sheer volume of use would make it worth it.

zipperhead• 7 years ago

Make it both! From http://www.economyofeffort.com/2014/08/11/beyond-ctrl-remap-...

  xcape -e 'Caps_Lock=Escape;Control_L=Escape;Control_R=Escape'

adrianrocamora2• 7 years ago

Since I can't control the mouse so well anymore due to health reasons I grew to hate Kanban boards and Trello. Nowadays, the following goes into my init.vim along with vimwiki and it has made my work much more enjoyable :)

""" KANBAN BOARD

" Close board tab

map <leader>bc :tabclose<CR>

" Main board: soon, doing, today, done

map <leader>bb :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/soon.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/doing.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/today.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/done.md<CR>

" Full board: triage, later, soon, doing, today, done, archive

map <leader>bf :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/triage.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/later.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/soon.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/doing.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/today.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/done.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/archive.md<CR>

" Triage board: triage, later, soon, doing

map <leader>bt :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/triage.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/later.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/soon.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/doing.md<CR>

" Archiving board: done, archive

map <leader>ba :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/done.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/archive.md<CR>

AH2mdte8kPnJS• 7 years ago

I loved this but wanted to generalize it a bit to clean it up and make it portable across different computers.

By no means am I a vimscript expert so any improvements welcome. (I've defined g:settings.kanban_board_path above).

    function! g:Kanban_file(stage)
        return g:settings.kanban_board_path . a:stage
    endfunction

    let $KBsoon=g:Kanban_file('soon.md')
    let $KBdoing=g:Kanban_file('doing.md')
    let $KBtoday=g:Kanban_file('today.md')
    let $KBdone=g:Kanban_file('done.md')
    let $KBarchive=g:Kanban_file('archive.md')
    " Close board tab

    map <leader>bc :tabclose<CR>

    " Main board: soon, doing, today, done

    map <leader>bb :tabnew $KBsoon<CR>:vnew $KBdoing<CR>:vnew $KBtoday<CR>:vnew $KBdone<CR>

    ...

adrianrocamora2• 7 years ago

Lovely, it was a bit of a hack I came up with that I was trying out, but your cleaned up version makes it look wonderful so into my init.vim it goes! Thanks :)

fourier_mode2• 7 years ago

Is there any reason for not using Tmux instead of using panes in Vim?

Scarbutt• 7 years ago

They are orthogonal?

jteppinette2• 7 years ago

Utilizing cross-window copy/paste, cross-window repeat, opening a new file (window) with a single command vs new tmux pane then initializing vim. Those are just a few of the many reasons. IMO, using a new tmux pane for each vim instance would be a HUGE anti-pattern. Most people with the tmux/vim setup will use a single tmux pane for vim, then N number of other tmux panes for other required needs (compiling, tests, etc...).

nextlevelwizard• 7 years ago

Do people usually have multiple vim splits open? At least I usually just have one terminal with new tmux splits and usually one vim with multiple buffers I switch between if needed.

However if I'm looking for something or doing something in another split and I need to view a file or edit a file I don't go back to my vim split and open it there I just open vim right there where I am.

devposter2• 7 years ago

They are called "windows" in Vim. That's why many related commands begin with Ctrl+w.

socratesque• 7 years ago

One of my favorite features of Vim is that it completely decouples tabs/windows from files/buffers. In mostly all IDEs I'm aware of, you open a file, and you get a tab to go along with it. In Vim, I have one instance (of Vim) running, maybe just one window if I feel like it, and potentially hundreds of files open, maybe some edited but not saved yet. And all I do it switch in and out which file/buffer I want to view in my one window. (more typically 2-4 panes/windows, and yay BufExplorer for making that easy)

unsatchmo• 7 years ago

Xcode’s editor tabs aren’t tied to files.

pfranz• 7 years ago

I'm always curious the mental-model people use with tmux+vim. The combination gets brought up so often, but don't often talk about when they use Tmux panes vs vim windows.

A few reasons to prefer vim windows are diffs and sharing the same buffers when flipping between them.

boomlinde4• 7 years ago

Shared registers, synchronized editing. The main advantage of tmux over vim windows is persistent sessions, but you can have that and still use vim windows.

fourier_mode2• 7 years ago

First thank you folks for the suggestions. After using Vim panes for a day, I can say this:

Vim panes vs vim instances in tmux, who wins? It depends on the use case. In case you want to edit files that are completely independent of each other and you prefer not sharing registers between these files, then you are better of using tmux panes; however if the use case involves similar files and involves lot of copy pasting between the 2 buffers, then it is very much recommended that you use Vim panes as the sharing of registers proves its worth in this use case.

goblin89• 7 years ago

As far as Vim split navigation goes (and especially for those of us using Tmux), check out https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator.

It simply allows you to use Ctrl+{h,j,k,l} to navigate across Vim and Tmux splits as if they all were part of one cohesive IDE. Additionally, it spares you from having to maintain a configuration blob in your .vimrc thanks to being bundled as a plugin.

I don’t think it auto-creates splits, though.

kpremote• 7 years ago

I've noticed that there are not as many Vim/Emacs related posts on HN during the past two years than before. And the discussions and upvotes have been less enthusiastic.

If it's indeed the case (I might well be off the mark), I can think of a few possible reasons, Maybe because VS Code has won. It is much easier for beginners than Vim/Emacs (duh) but still powerful, so less questions and issues are raised. Its default setup is very good so customization is minimum, its plugins system are both vast and easy to use, etc.

Or, Vim itself has become easier to operate since version 8, tutorials are better than before, plugins are better,

Or on HN people these days have much more interests in talking about other topics. What do you think?

lone_haxx0r• 7 years ago

Maybe everything to be said about vim has already been said. You can look at those threads from 3 years ago and read about it if you want.

yinyang_in• 7 years ago

I really like how his website displays so well in mobile. Beautiful work

Handy Keymaps in Vim

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