Bind key sequence to Escape, zsh

keyboard shortcutsvi-modezsh

How would I map jj to Esc in zsh?

I'm trying to recreate a key-mapping that I have setup in vim, where I have jj mapped to ESC so that whenever I double-press j, it sends the an <Esc> to vim–allowing me to enter normal mode with greater convenience.

I've already tried bindkey 'jj' ^[, and I'm about to try bindkey 'jj' ^[[, but I doubt that it'll work. I also checked the list of commands provided by zsh in normal mode, but I didn't see anything that contained normal or escape.

NOTE
The ^[ characters in my ~/.zshrc file are actual hard coded escapes; not just the characters ^ and [.

Best Answer

You need -s to bind actual strings instead of widgets:

bindkey -s jj '\e'

Though you probably want to map jj to the vi-cmd-mode widget here:

bindkey jj vi-cmd-mode

(note that's for binding in insert mode, not normal/command mode)

Related Solutions

How to Use CapsLock Instead of Escape in Vim

I don't think you can map CapsLock from within Vim. You remap it within X using setxkbmap:

setxkbmap -option caps:swapescape

For remapping in the console, if your distro uses systemd, you can use a custom keyboard layout in /etc/vconsole.conf as described on the Arch Wiki, and for other init systems see this U&L answer.

Bash – Readline: Binding an ANSI escape sequence to a key

Two parts:

bash lets you bind a key to the readline clear-screen function (which seems to be the original goal).
in bash, readline's purpose is to prepare text (by editing, etc) for issuing commands to bash. An escape sequence would be sent to the terminal. None of the listed functions for readline would act as a replacement for echo or printf.

Key bindings for readline expect a single function-name or literal string. In your example, readline read what it considered a possible function name, and ignored the rest of the line.

So: no, bash/readline provide no useful features for echoing an escape sequence directly as a key-binding. You have to go another level, as noted, using echo.

Best Answer

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How to Use CapsLock Instead of Escape in Vim

Bash – Readline: Binding an ANSI escape sequence to a key

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