Readline in Vim's Insert Mode | Hacker News Reader

Readline in Vim's Insert Mode

github.com

20 pointsresonator11 comments

> Why am I always exiting from insert mode? Because I don't know the insert modes special keys. > Why are those special keys so different from Readline?

You were doing it right the first time. Vim's "insert mode special keys" are basically incredibly basic terminal controls that are the same as Readline anyway (like backspace, or ^U to delete to the beginning of the line), or incredibly obscure things like inserting the contents of a specific register. Vim doesn't expect you to move the cursor much in insert mode, it's just for typing.

As it turns out, the extra Readline bindings this emulates are basically emulating Emacs' standard bindings, so if you want those bindings in an editor, you know where to look.

Personally, I just stick these settings in ~/.inputrc:

    set editing-mode vi
    set keymap vi

...and then every application that uses Readline (including bash, the Python REPL, the PostgreSQL REPL, and a bunch of other things) defaults to vi keybindings. It's dreamy.

have you ever found a solution to make readline change cursor shape depending on mode? not knowing the mode before typing keeps me from turning this on, even though I prefer vi bindings.

Honestly, I've never looked. Although it seems some terminals can change the cursor shape, it looks like even Vim doesn't bother to try, so I'd be surprised if readline could.

The general solution is to just tap Esc a couple of times to ensure you're in Normal mode and continue from there.

You can do something similar using the show-mode-in-prompt option:

  show-mode-in-prompt
    If set to `on', add a character to the beginning of the prompt indicating
    the editing mode: emacs (`@'), vi command (`:'), or vi insertion (`+').
    The default value is `off'.

Unfortunately it's currently hardcoded to only use the '+' and ':' chars, and to only display at the beginning of the prompt.

Chet accepted a patch I submitted for custom indicators, and this will be coming in bash 4.4/readline 7.0: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.shells.bash.bugs/22580/fo...

I have patched versions of bash 4.3/readline 6.3 available on github (the bash page has gifs showing the functionality in action): https://github.com/calid/bash https://github.com/calid/readline

Note that the '\m' escape hasn't been accepted into the mainline yet, so as of now the custom indicators will still only display at the beginning of the prompt in the new versions.

Counterargument: It might disrupt your flow and make undos and using the dot more difficult.

There is an [episode of vimcasts](http://vimcasts.org/episodes/modal-editing-undo-redo-and-rep...) which compares editing in vim's insert mode to making a brush stroke in a graphics program. With this plugin one must be careful not to make the brush strokes too long.

Very interesting analogy. Many 3D modeling programs had undos based on clean abstractions (history of transformation matrices for object P/O/S, stack of operators to influence geometry) but it often broke when you go below. Houdini (one that was fairly dogmatic about being 'procedural') had to reify vertices/edges modification as an Edit node in its object graph to stay coherent without losing information (or making it a second class citizen).

No ! just say no ! Don't do it ! This repo is created by an emacs lovers who pretends to use vim and then creates subversive plugins just so that they can spread confusion, fear and chaos among vim users !!

:-)

Ah, well, whatever peels your banana...

> confusion, fear and chaos among vim users

What, more than usual? How could you even tell?

There is already a plugin that does the job pretty fine : tpope/vim-rsi

vim-rsi... Readline-Style Insertion or Repetitive Strain Injury?

Tomato tomato

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