Vim – Minimal Setup Explained • Hacker News Board

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#21

Post by afarviral » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:07 AM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #15

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

I’ve never found a problem with it. Right at the corner, it’s easy to hit with my left ring finger, sitting perfectly at a comfortable distance (based on where I rest my hands) for a slap in that general direction. (I use my Caps Lock as Backspace. Backspace near the top right is vastly less comfortable to reach than Escape in the top left.)

Disagree with Esc being in a good spot but having dabbled with the "workman" keyboard layout can confirm its quite lovely having backspace as caps. I often wonder about making capslock backspace, and original backspace becoming Escape. Since I already have strong muscle memory to stretch to backspace...

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#22

Post by assbuttbuttass » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:20 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

I actually use Ctrl+[ instead of escape. It takes some getting used to but it's easy to reach

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#23

Post by wildrhythms » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:22 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

Rebind Caps Lock to Escape (or as a second escape). Can't live without it now.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#24

Post by apocolyps6 » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:24 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

Do you consider hitting enter/return for a newline to be clunky as well? Its generally the same size as caps lock and opposite it on the keyboard. I'd say I press return a bit more often then Esc when using vim, but its close

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#25

Post by cturtle » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:31 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

Time. It slowly becomes second nature and now I quickly reach for esc in many applications, not just vim. It does seem weird at first, an insert key (i, a, o, etc) and an esc needed for every text addition, but over time you grow used to it.

I also have my caps mapped to both ctrl and esc. Ctrl when held, and esc when tapped. Wish I had done that ages ago.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#26

Post by ninepoints » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:47 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

Aside from the advice mentioned (I bind caps to escape), I find that beginners use escape waaaay more often than is necessary because they aren't using all the commands at their disposal. For example, entering insert mode to delete some characters instead of using d+motion or x. Or entering insert mode to add indentation instead of using the = operator. It would take too long to enumerate all the cases where there is a much more streamlined way to perform an operation than entering insert mode, but I think this would explain the difference in experiences between people that may have used longer and aren't bothered by escape-use frequency and newer vim users.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#27

Post by knowledge-clay » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:52 AM UTC

krat0sprakhar wrote: post #12

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

I use `jk` or `jj` instead of esc. Its so much easier imap jj

I tried this, but it (understandably) caused a delay whenever I typed j alone in insert mode

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#28

Post by ckolkey » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 6:14 AM UTC

asicsp wrote: post #16

legogt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once I found out CTRL-[ did the same thing I haven't hit ESC since.

I wish Ctrl+[ wasn't tied to Esc. I hit that often instead of Ctrl+P. Haven't yet found a way to map Ctrl+[ to Ctrl+P without affecting behavior of Esc as well.

It's because your computer can't tell the difference. c-[ and ESC send the same key-code. Same with c-i and tab. What you can do to get around this is to remap one of them to something like f20 using Karabiner, then map f20 to what you like in vim.

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#29

Post by that-whiny-boi » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 6:17 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Question for Vim users: how do you get used to hitting Esc very often? I know some switch Cap with Esc but still clunky.

I use ctrl+c. Since I'm already used to ctrl+c while using a terminal, it became easy even in vim. By default vim goes to normal mode when you press ctrl+c

Re: Vim – Minimal Setup Explained

#30

Post by somecommit » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 6:27 AM UTC

Since I was in university 15 years ago I promised myself to learn Vim commands seriously.

Well I see that finally I did my programmer life learning only switching insert mode / edit mode, maybe 5 commands like A x etc...,and :q or :wq!