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Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

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Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#51

Post by tikhonj »

dkersten wrote: post #43
bryanlarsen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a brilliant layout. Unfortunately it appears to require a "tall enter" keyboard rather than the much more common "wide enter". I'm in the market for a nice cherry blue keyboard, so I'll see if I can find one with a tall enter. Anybody have any sources?

I'm using the silent ([EDIT: I had this in reverse..] cherry mx brown; non silent is cherry mx blue) DAS keyboard[1]. The "professional" model has the letters on the keys, if you don't want a blank one. They seem to come in both US (wide enter) and UK (tall enter) versions. I personally chose the UK one as that's what I'm used to. Here[2] is a photo of my keyboard. The coloured keys are sold as WASD/escape keys but I…

I also have a Das keyboard and it is really awesome. (Also, I think it's the best looking keyboard I have ever seen--very minimalist.) However, I think you have them backwards--the "silent" version has the brown switches and the normal version has the blue switches. I also have the ultimate silent version and it is not really silent--it's just quieter than the other version. You still get a satisfying noise when you use it.

I've been really satisfied with it, and would definitely recommend it to anybody looking for a nice mechanical keyboard.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#52

Post by Seth_Kriticos »

dkersten wrote: post #43
bryanlarsen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a brilliant layout. Unfortunately it appears to require a "tall enter" keyboard rather than the much more common "wide enter". I'm in the market for a nice cherry blue keyboard, so I'll see if I can find one with a tall enter. Anybody have any sources?

I'm using the silent ([EDIT: I had this in reverse..] cherry mx brown; non silent is cherry mx blue) DAS keyboard[1]. The "professional" model has the letters on the keys, if you don't want a blank one. They seem to come in both US (wide enter) and UK (tall enter) versions. I personally chose the UK one as that's what I'm used to. Here[2] is a photo of my keyboard. The coloured keys are sold as WASD/escape keys but I…

I'm using the loud, non-labeled DAS keyboard Model S Ultimate, typing with Dvorak layout. It cost's a small fortune, but it's so worth it. I love this keyboard. http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-ultimate/

Mostly keep my vim key-binding mappings small, so I'm not confused when working with it with default settings. Mostly use -c to get out of insert mode though, escape is so far.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#53

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

mtts wrote: post #49
keenerd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer caps lock to Control. ^C does the same thing as escape in Vi[m]. While it is chording, the combo is pretty easy to hit. This is a bit of a compromise, but all the other programs that are not vim will benefit from it.

Never knew that Ctrl-C does the same thing as escape. Thanks for the info!

They're not exactly the same thing, actually, ctrl-c doesn't allow you to expand abbreviations and doesn't trigger the InsertLeave autocommand, but to be honest, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I go between ctrl-c and ctrl-] without thinking.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#54

Post by hyperbovine »

nirvdrum wrote: post #32
karamazov wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you get used to hjkl,it's pretty "intuitive" (in that you don't need to think about what you're doing).

Unless you use Dvorak. I know I'm in a super minority here. But shortcuts based on keyboard location rather than tied to some mnemonic are damn near impossible to get right. Doubly so when I have to switch to QWERTY to work with anyone else.

I switched cold turkey to Dvorak and Vim at practically the same time (what can I say, I like pain :) I learned Vim mnemonically and have no problem using Vim on QWERTY. At the same time, I could have just as easily learned it "locationally" and been screwed. Only chiming in because I think it's interesting that the learning curves for location-vs-mnemonic seem approximately equal, but the long-term payoff of one is much greater. Neat asymmetry.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#55

Post by graywh »

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #53
mtts wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never knew that Ctrl-C does the same thing as escape. Thanks for the info!

They're not exactly the same thing, actually, ctrl-c doesn't allow you to expand abbreviations and doesn't trigger the InsertLeave autocommand, but to be honest, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I go between ctrl-c and ctrl-] without thinking.

Also, 3aa appends 3 a's, but 3aa appends only 1.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#56

Post by sswezey »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #31
cheatercheater wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have created an ergonomic layout based on the us layout, called us_split. In it, Vim's hjkl actually are the home position. The layout works under Gnome. It's just like qwerty but a bit different. Basically the two columns from the right are put in the middle. Time to learn to use it fluently is only a couple of days if you touch type qwerty already. https://bitbucket.org/cheater/us_split/overview I see a lot of pe…

That's a brilliant layout. Unfortunately it appears to require a "tall enter" keyboard rather than the much more common "wide enter". I'm in the market for a nice cherry blue keyboard, so I'll see if I can find one with a tall enter. Anybody have any sources?

You my friend should check out The Keyboard Company, keyboardco.com

They have tons of choices of blue, black, and brown Cherry switches (I think), you just have to match up their terminology with the right color.

They ship from England too, fyi.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#57

Post by graywh »

ehsanu1 wrote: post #37

If anyone is apprehensive about vim's hjkl keys, and you like the arrow keys better, you can use ijkl instead and get all the benefits of the muscle memory you have built up for arrow keys, while still keeping your hands on the home row. Use this mapping: " remap h to i and use ijkl for inverse T cursor movement map k g map i g map j noremap h i Then the 'i' key will be replaced by 'h'. So press 'h' to insert, or for…

I'd recommend specifying a mode on those. That i map disables half the text-objects in visual and operator modes.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#58

Post by graywh »

shabble wrote: post #35
joshmlewis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just learning vim and just yesterday I was wondering why they chose the escape key.

These days I mostly use Ctrl-C instead of Esc, just because it's so much easier to type. If you make a serious commitment to vi(m) though, binding your capslock to esc is probably the better way to go.

I found ctrl there more useful. Especially for its use with other programs.

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#59

Post by SkyMarshal »

dkersten wrote: post #38
eru wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just never decide to learn dvorak.

Agreed, learn Colemak instead ;-) Seriously though, I think with a tiny bit of key-swapping in the vimrc, you can use dvorak or colemak just fine.

+1. Dvorak needs to go the way of the dodo. Colemak:Dvorak::Dvorak:Qwerty.

http://colemak.com/

Re: Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

#60

Post by ScottBurson »

jgrahamc wrote: post #21

Doesn't this go way back though? The reason that keyboard had those arrows keys on it was because those keys correspond to CTRL-H, J, K, L and the CTRL key back then worked by killing bit 6 (and bit 5) of the characters being typed. The effect was that H which is ASCII 0x48 would become 0x08 which is backspace. If you look at an ASCII table (e.g. http://www.asciitable.com/ ) you will notice how the uppercase ASCII le…

Actually, on a Teletype, VT went down, not up. (Vertical tab stops were settable only in hardware on most models.) And FF, which went to the top of the next page, is obviously unrelated to going right. So the correspondence was really just suggested by BS and LF; it was apparently some terminal manufacturer's idea to put up and right on the next two keys.
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