When $EDITOR is vim, but I expected anything else:
opens file, with small text on the top; text begins changing; text duplicates in size, then triples; text returns to original size; text increases in size to fit several screens...
Then my great reflexes kick on and I notice something wrong :)
my work client cancels the new mail without there being a draft, though that may be because of muscle memory pressing a key combo after esc. its major pain o7
The reason it's so popular is because it provides directional navigation on the home row, with the direction that's by far the most common (down) under your strongest, dominant finger (the index finger).
It's much better for both efficiency and ergonomics than arrow keys.
So you've transferred the required hand move from the right hand to the left, and added extra required keystrokes to accomplish the same task. I don't see how that isn't worse.
No, it's a key stroke, not hand move. I don't have to reposition my hand to hit ESC. You do have to reposition your hand to use arrow keys.
Also, you usually move the cursor by more than just one character. It's one extra keystroke to reposition the cursor, not to move it by one char. You have shortcuts to jump to end of file, specific line, end of line or even create and jump to bookmarks. All this with just standard keys, without repositioning your hands to use the mouse or arrow keys.
Your keyboard must be slightly different than the one I have in front of me right now. Home row to esc and home row to arrows is the same distance on mine.
First, as I said, I remapped ESC to TAB key. Tab is very close.
Second, it's different to hit ESC ones than to use arrows keys to move around. To go back to home row after using arrow keys I have to feel around the keys trying to find "j" again. Or look at keyboard. I don't have to do that after hitting ESC once.
Moving hands is an extremely time-consuming task when you're typing 60+ words per minute. Couple of keystrokes are much much faster than relocating your hand twice.
Instead of using the arrow keys most vi & him users navigate the cursor around the doc by using letter keys. I do it so subcociously now I am not sure which direction is the j when I use my phone.
Vim has several modes. INSERT mode let's you write text, NORMAL mode let's you navigate (with h,j,k,l and others) and perform operations on the text with your keyboard, like "dw" to Delete Word or "A" to enter insert mode at the end of the line.
You can use arrow keys to navigate in insert mode. However I just press escape, which changes to normal, navigate to where I want to, then change to insert mode.
I may seem like this makes simple navigation complex, and it kinda does. But complex navigation becomes easier.
Vi (and vim and neovim)'s primary concern is viewing and editing code, writing is secondary (although it's still an excellent experience)
Yes, (neo)vi(m) has different modes, in normal mode the characters are shortcuts, hjkl is used for navigation. However other methods are prefered, w, e, b - jumping words, f,t - jumping to a specific character etc. Its way faster. Also it can be combined d2w (d)eletes the next (2) (w)ord. Or more advanced di" (d)eletes the text (i)nside the "..."
Insert mode is what you except: it writes what you type. Can be accessed by i - (i)nsert before a - (a)append after. Going back to normal mode is ESC (or many configure tab)
Can't uninstall it or my coworkers would go nuts. On systems with separate users, I can set it via .bashrc, but on shared user systems ... Well. Above happens.
I only understand this reference because I worked for a company at one point that had a large number of NeXT and Solaris hosts that only had vi installed with letter key navigation, so my muscle memory does not use arrow keys.
66 Comments
kythrea@lemmy.world · 131 pts · 75d
marcos@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 75d
When $EDITOR is vim, but I expected anything else:
opens file, with small text on the top; text begins changing; text duplicates in size, then triples; text returns to original size; text increases in size to fit several screens...
Then my great reflexes kick on and I notice something wrong :)
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 75d
Do you prefer when EDITOR is set to emacs?
marcos@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 75d
Personally, yes. But the default being nano is very sensible.
urandom@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 75d
The default should be mcedit. Much more usable than nano
protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 74d
I ideally with evil installed and easily toggleabkw with M-x evil-mode
for accessibikity purposes
StumblingWasabi@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 74d
First few time I opened vim (will neovim) I failed to see how to enter a command, and closed the window to get out of it
FedX@quokk.au · 49 pts · 75d
I will legitimately go esc, :w, i on Google Docs to try and save the document...
rescue_toaster@lemmy.zip · 31 pts · 75d
Escape in some email clients cancels a new email. I had to retype many emails before email clients began auto-saving drafts.
NominatedNemesis@reddthat.com · 7 pts · 75d
The paiiiin! How many hours I lost because of this?
::: spoiler Spoiler Probably less than I used to configure my neovim... :::
TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 75d
my work client cancels the new mail without there being a draft, though that may be because of muscle memory pressing a key combo after esc. its major pain o7
marcos@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 75d
I often ^x^s on graphic IDEs too.
On most of them, it works if you don't have any text selected. The Microsoft ones do really weird things.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works · 23 pts · 75d
Explain pls for us vimless noobs
FedX@quokk.au · 27 pts · 75d
Direction navigation in vim is hjkl.
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works · 22 pts · 75d
I know I'm just a vim-less heathen, but using letters for navigation in a text editor seems kind stupid when arrows exist.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de · 46 pts · 75d
No, you're 100% right. The only reason it's this way is this: https://pikuma.com/blog/origins-of-vim-text-editor
These literally were the arrow keys on the machine that vim was originally developed on.
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 75d
Why the hell didn't they go with JIKL or something instead then, so the pattern at least resembles the direction it navigates?
LSNLDN@slrpnk.net · 26 pts · 75d
Wasd was revolutionary at the time
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 17 pts · 75d
This really just shows how fundamentally terrible product developers engineers are.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 74d
I remember going from using Z/X/C+mouse2 for left/backpedal/right+forward WASD was such an adjustment
aradgus@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 75d
so your finges dont have to leave the home row. Its acually peak when you used hjkl for some time
tpihkal@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 75d
You should boycott vim. That'll teach 'em.
expr@piefed.social · 11 pts · 75d
The reason it's so popular is because it provides directional navigation on the home row, with the direction that's by far the most common (down) under your strongest, dominant finger (the index finger).
It's much better for both efficiency and ergonomics than arrow keys.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 8 pts · 75d
Why would you move your hand to arrow keys when the letter are already under your fingers?
ESC, use-letter-to-navigate, i, type, ESC, navigate, i, type
Really simple. On my keyboard I re-mapped ESC to TAB so I don't even have to move my hand to switch between navigate and insert modes.
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 75d
So you've transferred the required hand move from the right hand to the left, and added extra required keystrokes to accomplish the same task. I don't see how that isn't worse.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 5 pts · 75d
No, it's a key stroke, not hand move. I don't have to reposition my hand to hit ESC. You do have to reposition your hand to use arrow keys.
Also, you usually move the cursor by more than just one character. It's one extra keystroke to reposition the cursor, not to move it by one char. You have shortcuts to jump to end of file, specific line, end of line or even create and jump to bookmarks. All this with just standard keys, without repositioning your hands to use the mouse or arrow keys.
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 75d
Your keyboard must be slightly different than the one I have in front of me right now. Home row to esc and home row to arrows is the same distance on mine.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 3 pts · 75d
First, as I said, I remapped ESC to TAB key. Tab is very close.
Second, it's different to hit ESC ones than to use arrows keys to move around. To go back to home row after using arrow keys I have to feel around the keys trying to find "j" again. Or look at keyboard. I don't have to do that after hitting ESC once.
tyler@programming.dev · 2 pts · 75d
I use layers so esc is actually almost directly under my pinky.
msage@programming.dev · 2 pts · 75d
Moving hands is an extremely time-consuming task when you're typing 60+ words per minute. Couple of keystrokes are much much faster than relocating your hand twice.
msage@programming.dev · 2 pts · 75d
I have it instead of CapsLock, tab is too useful to forego.
But yes, arrow keys are too far, and I avoid them everytime I can, including in Shell
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 2 pts · 75d
Yeah, sorry. I have:
Esc -> Caps lock (useless so far away)
Caps Lock -> Tab (the most useful so closest)
Tab -> Esc -> second most useful
I had it for so long that I forgot which one is which :)
TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 75d
Imma throw another option into the ring which is Caps lock -> Esc / Ctrl. it‘s esc when tapped and ctrl when combined/ held for longer. veeeery useful
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 2 pts · 75d
Sounds interesting. How do you set this up in Linux? I'm just remapping keys on X level now.
meowcar42O@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 75d
moving my hand this much SUCKS
graycube@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 75d
Instead of using the arrow keys most vi & him users navigate the cursor around the doc by using letter keys. I do it so subcociously now I am not sure which direction is the
jwhen I use my phone.MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 75d
But keyboards have arrow keys now?
placebo@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 74d
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 1 pts · 75d
I'm one of the noobs. You use letter keys to navigate around text?
owsei@programming.dev · 10 pts · 75d
Vim has several modes. INSERT mode let's you write text, NORMAL mode let's you navigate (with h,j,k,l and others) and perform operations on the text with your keyboard, like "dw" to Delete Word or "A" to enter insert mode at the end of the line.
You can use arrow keys to navigate in insert mode. However I just press escape, which changes to normal, navigate to where I want to, then change to insert mode.
I may seem like this makes simple navigation complex, and it kinda does. But complex navigation becomes easier.
Vi (and vim and neovim)'s primary concern is viewing and editing code, writing is secondary (although it's still an excellent experience)
poinck@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 74d
SystemDisc@feddit.org · 2 pts · 69d
I use ‘O’ the most. It inserts a newline at the end of the line and starts Insert Mode after the newline.
poinck@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 68d
NominatedNemesis@reddthat.com · 5 pts · 75d
Yes, (neo)vi(m) has different modes, in
normalmode the characters are shortcuts, hjkl is used for navigation. However other methods are prefered, w, e, b - jumping words, f,t - jumping to a specific character etc. Its way faster. Also it can be combinedd2w(d)eletes the next (2) (w)ord. Or more advanceddi"(d)eletes the text (i)nside the "..."Insertmode is what you except: it writes what you type. Can be accessed by i - (i)nsert before a - (a)append after. Going back to normal mode is ESC (or many configure tab)Bonje@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 74d
20Gwwbcwkurva:wq
realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip · 9 pts · 75d
This is a problem for me on systems that only have nano installed. Gets me every time
poinck@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 74d
realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 74d
Can't uninstall it or my coworkers would go nuts. On systems with separate users, I can set it via .bashrc, but on shared user systems ... Well. Above happens.
bebabalula@feddit.dk · 7 pts · 74d
I cannot begin to describe how many times I’ve had to re-type the same info in some input form because I hit esc when I had first finished it!
FancyPantsFIRE@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 75d
I only understand this reference because I worked for a company at one point that had a large number of NeXT and Solaris hosts that only had vi installed with letter key navigation, so my muscle memory does not use arrow keys.
NABDad@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 75d
It's been so long since I worked on a machine where I couldn't use the cursor keys in vi, I don't think I'd even be able to anymore.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 75d
Coders use word docs?
I'm not a programmer but I still open up notepad and write in markdown.
It's just faster.
Alberat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 75d
the collab feature of google docs is nice
replicat@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 75d
ITT: People who don't use vim and insist we have arrow keys now so don't need hjkl anymore.
Aneb@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 74d
Here's what my terminal usually looks like
@>vim srv/txt.txt Writes a bunch of lines of code/words/docker containers. [ESC] :sq Can't edit file without sudo :q! @>sudo vim srv/txt.txt 🥹
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 75d
Erm. This would be vi? vim has arrow key support.
rustydrd@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 75d
Implying that vim users use arrows instead of hjkl? Blasphemy!
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 75d
I do :p and I use vim a lot.
whatiswrongwithyou@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 75d
When I start a new roguelike:
Activate [j]ump ability, view [l]og, no item underfoot to mark for [k]eeping, [h]ide.
ornery_chemist@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 74d
<ESC><ESC><ESC><ESC>ujj<ESC>u<ESC>v0wsffs<C-z><C-s><A-F4><A-enter>vim pres.typ...red_sock@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 71d
ting in vim I sometimes still forget I start in normal mode.
00xide@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 74d
jjjjjjjjjjj? Nah fam,11j.collapse_already@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 73d
Hmmm, j is not working better try k some... And multiple esc
tomiant@piefed.social · 2 pts · 74d
I use eMacs btw
rumba@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 71d
And they lived happier ever after.
THE END :wq!