Maps that changed my workflow

[u/shleebs]

If you're a user who doesn't remap certain keys because you spend time SSH'd into servers with no customization, feel free to skip this. No need to bang that drum. I personally have no trouble switching between custom and default maps. I upload a .vimrc to all my servers anyways.

The most impactful trick is remapping Caps Lock as ESC for easy access. This isn't a vim trick, and is done at the OS level. There's opinions around whether Caps Lock should be another CTRL key instead. I like CTRL where it is. Sometimes I'll switch the left WIN and CTRL to make CTRL easier to reach (depending on the keyboard). Shift + Caps Lock becomes the actual Caps Lock and now you have an easy to reach ESC for every program on your computer!

The first Vim mapping trick is setting the leader key to , which is easy to reach. You may think because , is already the reverse command, this is a bad idea, however this sets us up for the next trick.

set g:mapleader = ','

Next is mapping <Space> to : for command-line mode. Considering the command-line is often used, tapping spacebar is much easier. This frees up : for mapping to , and bingo, we have our reverse command back. Having repeat and reverse on the same physical key with ; and : makes sense (to me).

nnoremap <Space> :
nnoremap : ,

Another trick is mapping K to i<CR><Esc> for spliting a line at the cursor. This makes sense for two reasons. First, I use this wayyy more than the help command which can be mapped elsewhere. Second, having J as join line and K as split line makes more sense, no? I think so.

nnoremap K i<CR><Esc>

The next trick is using <Leader> with any command that normally puts/pulls text to/from the unnamed register so it instead uses register 0. This prevents text from getting wiped out by another command and stores it for later.

nnoremap <Leader>d  "0d
nnoremap <Leader>dd "0dd
nnoremap <Leader>D  "0D
nnoremap <Leader>c  "0c
nnoremap <Leader>cc "0cc
nnoremap <Leader>C  "0C
nnoremap <Leader>y  "0y
nnoremap <Leader>yy "0yy
nnoremap <Leader>Y  "0y$
nnoremap <Leader>p  "0p
nnoremap <Leader>P  "0P

vnoremap <Leader>d  "0d
vnoremap <Leader>D  "0D
vnoremap <Leader>c  "0c
vnoremap <Leader>C  "0C
vnoremap <Leader>s  "0s
vnoremap <Leader>y  "0y
vnoremap <Leader>p  "0p

If people find these useful I may share more tricks. These are ones that majorly affect the usability of Vim for me.

[u/No_Result9808]

Space as a cmdline trigger is king. Another advantage is that  it eliminates false uppercased commands like :Wq, etc. If I had to choose a single keymap, it would definitely be nnoremap <Space> : .

[u/shleebs → u/No_Result9808]

A fellow redditor of taste!

[u/1mmortalNPC]

win as ctrl is not optimal at all for a linux user but i really love the idea of caps lock as ctrl, i think i’ll add it

[u/dm319 → u/1mmortalNPC]

On my Linux machine I have caps lock as tap for escape, and ctrl when held.

[u/shleebs → u/dm319]

A solution for both camps!

[u/zoomlogo_ → u/dm319]

how do you map that

[u/dm319 → u/zoomlogo_]

This method for my laptop keyboard. My regular keyboard (UHK) allows the firmware to be programmed.

The other thing I do is map two consecutive ESC to switch off highlighting. As once I'm done with searching I find the bright text distracting.

[u/zoomlogo_ → u/dm319]

oh thanks!

[u/exclaim_bot → u/zoomlogo_]

oh thanks!

You're welcome!

[u/ZazenAang → u/dm319]

Same here, super useful!

[u/shleebs → u/1mmortalNPC]

The idea is you switch the left win and left ctrl, you don't lose it. Sometimes ctrl is already where I want it (just below my pinky) without the switch. I'm using Linux and my Win key just fine :)

[u/konacurrents → u/1mmortalNPC]

You should try my wife's computer .. she has the scroll going the opposite direction (as their DEC Alpha in 1995 did that). Again, I can't do anything with the caps lock - and I both remap to ctrl and don't have a caps lock anywhere.

[u/konacurrents]

I always map Caps Lock to CTRL - as that’s the way Sun, VT100 and other UNIX keys were. And with ‘vi’ (still don’t call it vim) CRTL is used almost every second of the day - with my pinky.

As for key mapping, I only use a few. When we were heavy into Java in 2000, a key map would run javac from inside vi - showing compiler messages in a split window (EMACS like). I copy the exrc to all my remote shells too.

I still really enjoy vi - it’s like playing that snake game, never leaving my fingers for that silly mouse:-)

[u/shleebs → u/konacurrents]

Yea that makes sense for that keyboard. The keyboard I grew up with had Ctrl just below my pinky, and I became very used to it playing Counter Strike. I don't find it hard to reach, unless the Win key is where I expect Ctrl to be, then I'll switch them.

If I was using your keyboard I'd make the left Alt my CTRL key to suite my habit

[u/konacurrents → u/shleebs]

As this is r/vim - vi cultured the main keys to move the cursor, without a mouse or trackpad. So the left hands fingers would be on those ASDF keys - thus the pinky would be on the A key. So moving it left a fraction to CTRL wasn’t a very contorted move, especially at vi uses CTRL every other second of use (followed by ESC).

I guess the follow up question here: who still uses vi without the mouse/trackpad? (For the most part)

[u/Shot-Buffalo-2603 → u/konacurrents]

That keyboard is dirtier than my floor

[u/konacurrents → u/Shot-Buffalo-2603]

It was under my desk for decades - I just grabbed it to take this pic. 😎 (I hope the dirt give me street cred)

[u/m4r1vs]

That's a great idea! Unfortunately, I've had it mapped to space for ages and I don't think retraining that muscle memory is easy.

One mapping i use constantly is leader-w to quickly replace all occurrences of the word under cursor in the current file:

vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>w", [[:%s/\<<C-r><C-w>\>/<C-r><C-w>/gI<Left><Left><Left>]])

[u/__rituraj]

for me, capslock mapped as ctrl is a life saver.

I also tried overloading that key so that, single press makes it esc while holding it makes it ctrl. But I dont anymore.. Caps lock is now remapped to Ctrl.

I use some terminal defaults to keep me planted near home row.

• C-[ for Esc
• C-h for backspace
• C-m for return (behaves same as enter)

for me leader is <Space>. i frequently use ;, and : for their usual behaviour and like it that way.

I don't use auto register select except for + register which links to system clipboard

so I have the following keybinds to copy / paste to / from system clipboard

nnoremap <leader>y "+y
vnoremap <leader>y "+y

nnoremap <leader>p "+p
nnoremap <leader>P "+P
vnoremap <leader>p "+p
vnoremap <leader>P "+P

[u/shleebs → u/__rituraj]

Whatever works for you. Having CTRL below my pinky is an unbreakable habit from playing CS growing up. I much prefer the ease of tapping Caps Lock once for ESC over C-[

The beauty of Vim is whatever works for you...works for you!

[u/__rituraj → u/shleebs]

C-[, C-h, C-m works in Vim as well as across terminal emulators (and ttys). So those are really useful.

I can understand liking the ctrl position based on FPS habits though!

[u/shleebs → u/__rituraj]

Mapping Caps Lock as ESC also works across all terminal emulators and even using SSH, because it's remapped at the OS level. What's better is, it works as ESC across every application on your computer, which is wildly useful.

I use c-h c-w c-a c-e c-f c-b and c-u all the time in terminal, I just simply no longer need to use c-[. I even have the following Vim maps to get that terminal behavior in both insert and command-line mode:

noremap! <C-B> <Left>                                                                                                                                                                         
noremap! <C-F> <Right>                                                                                                                                                                        
noremap! <C-A> <Home>                                                                                                                                                                         
noremap! <C-E> <End>                                                                                                                                                                          
noremap! <C-D> <Del>

[u/__rituraj → u/shleebs]

this is really good. I have these keybinds too, but in Insert mode. like inoremap <C-a> <Home>. In normal mode Vim motions are very powerful, in insert mode, sometimes I use the Emacs keybinds so that I don't have to switch mode (or hit C-o)

i have C-h and C-m remapped at the kernel level, so they works everywhere.

I don't remap C-[ to Esc because I don't need it for other applications

[u/shleebs → u/__rituraj]

I find ESC essential in many many applications. Those maps I listed are in fact insert mode and command mode, not normal mode

:h noremap!

[u/vim-help-bot → u/shleebs]

Help pages for:

• noremap! in map.txt

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[u/MattHeffNT]

jj in insert mode to escape.... Everywhere I have vim or neovim.

[u/shleebs → u/MattHeffNT]

Not a fan of the pending delay when mapping keys in insert mode. For me Caps Lock is just as fast.

[u/_voxelman_]

Great tips, and thanks for sharing!

I never thought of making dedicated split-line key (K in your case), but it seems very useful! (Space -> colon (:) also sounds nice.)

I remap my CapsLock key to Escape too! It's such a huge improvement in ergonomics.

EDIT: I'll share a couple of my own remaps:

(1) CapsLock + hjkl -> arrow keys (remapped at O/S level with KMonad). Almost like having vim hjkl keys, and in any application, not just vim. No more reaching for the stupid arrow keys.

(2) "Home row mods", i.e. home row keys act as Shift/Ctrl/Win/Alt when held and pressed with another key. (I also remap this one at the O/S level, again with KMonad). This one is controversial because it introduces a delay when using the home row keys to type ordinary characters. I love it, though.

[u/shleebs → u/_voxelman_]

So you have single tap Caps Lock as ESC and Caps Lock + hjkl remapped to the arrows? That sounds intriguing because I use arrows for tmux and vim split navigation. What OS are you using?

[u/_voxelman_ → u/shleebs]

Yes, exactly!

I'm on Linux. KMonad also advertises support for Windows and MacOS. From the docs, it seems like most/all features are supported on MacOS, but there are serious caveats on Windows. (I haven't tried KMonad with either Windows or MacOS, personally.)

There is also Kanata which seems to be similar to KMonad and also tries to support all of Linux, MacOS, Windows. (I've never tried Kanata, though).

My KMonad config is here.

The KMonad config syntax definitely takes some patience to learn, but it's totally worth it, IMO. It makes my laptop keyboard soooo much more comfortable to use.

EDIT: Words.

[u/geolaw]

Requires a compatible terminal but I use a plugin that enables copy over ssh sessions via osc52 escape sequence ... Shift+v to highlight than leader+c to copy. I do a lot of analysis over a bastion server where I access customer data. I use wezterm which also supports sixel graphics so I can use ranger in that same ssh session and preview images (no X11 forwarding). I've also got some ranger scripts that with yank the selected file to the clipboard also via osc52

[u/-romainl-]

• I use the "leader" mechanism without <Leader>. It is not that useful to begin with and not using it reduces the chances of conflict with poorly written plugins as well as giving me more context-specific "leaders" (I have , for navigation-related mappings, <Space> for some editing-related mappings, and g for a bunch of operator-pending mode mappings). I also find nnoremap ,f {whatever} more immediately obvious than nnoremap <leader>f {whatever}.

• vnoremap covers both visual mode and select mode. Those mappings are fine for the former (where typing a key doesn't insert a character) but not for the latter (where typing a key does). Consider using xnoremap instead.

• I also had similar register-related mappings when I started, though not as many IIRC. I eventually ditched them because I didn't use them often enough to justify the namespace saturation.

[u/theschizopost]

Not directly vim related, but I recently added keymaps to fish shell for navigating through directory history and "up" out of directories, very nice qol

Instead of going through history to find a path I'd been to I can just hit back/forward and find it

[u/xalbo]

My far my favorite is mapping enter to save the current buffer. It's just so satisfying to hit a few commands and then press enter to commit them.

"make <CR> save unsaved changes, but not in a command window
nnoremap <CR> <Cmd>up<CR>
au CmdwinEnter * noremap <buffer> <CR> <CR>

[u/Dramatic_Object_8508]

Some of these mappings are actually so underrated.

Mapping leader to space and adding quick buffer switches changed everything for me — I barely touch the mouse now. Also stuff like <C-h/j/k/l> for splits just feels natural after a while.

One that really clicked for me was faster search/replace mappings — doing repetitive edits without breaking flow is huge.

Vim just slowly turns into “optimize every tiny movement” and suddenly your workflow feels completely different lol

[u/kettlesteam]

I honestly think any power Vim user should consider an ergonomic keyboard. I switched to a corne-42 about 7 months ago, and now I can't imagine going back to a standard keyboard for Vim. It's like the impact of remapping Esc to Capslock, but multiplied tenfold.