How to get back into “normal” edit-mode after pressing esc in zsh (vi mode)

vi-modezlezsh

I'm using zsh in vi-mode.

When I go to normal mode with ESC and then back into insert mode (for example using i, a or s), the line editor kind of "protects" the part of the line in front of the char, at which I was when re-entering insert mode.

I fixed it for the backspace char by rebinding it with

bindkey "^?" backward-delete-char

But there are still other bindings like ^W that don't work out of the box (probably because they are bound to vi-*).

If I understand it correctly, this behavior is normal to vi.

Is there's a way to make zle behave like vim without having to rebind so many keys?

Best Answer

AFAICT, the only problematic widgets are:

vi-backward-delete-char
vi-kill-line
vi-backward-kill-word

So you could do

zle -A kill-whole-line vi-kill-line
zle -A backward-kill-word vi-backward-kill-word
zle -A backward-delete-char vi-backward-delete-char

Related Solutions

Bash + urxvt: delay after ESC in Vi mode

That sounds like keyseq-timeout, which is 500 (milliseconds). You could decrease it, e.g., to 50 (milliseconds). Setting it to zero would be a bad idea (see for example Re: How does one disable completion when nothing but tabs or spaces is on the line?).

Not a duplicate, but one of the answers in How do I switch to vi editing mode in readline? uses the feature:

# Enable Readline not waiting for additional input when a key is pressed.
# Needed for the mappings below.
set keyseq-timeout 0

Going over start of insert action in Z shell vi-mode

You can add this to your zsh configuration:

bindkey -M viins '^?' backward-delete-char
bindkey -M viins '^H' backward-delete-char

Explanation:

Vi-mode is just a set of preconfigured keymaps (viins, vicmd, viopp, visual) that bind certain keys to certain widgets. Some of these widgets are specifically designed to behave close to the way the vi editor does.

In your case this is the vi-backward-delete-char widget that is by default bound to Backspace in the viins mode, which has the specific feature to not delete past the position where insert mode was entered.

Often sligthtly different versions of these widgeds exist, that behave more in line with the emacs editor. In this case it would be the backward-delete-char widget, which is not limited to the current insert session. Although it is by default bound in emacs-mode, there are no hard restrictions on which widget can be used in which mode. You can use backward-delete-char within vi-mode by simply rebinding Backspace to call the widget backward-delete-char instead.

The reason for there being two bindings - ^? and ^H - is that it depends on the terminal, which of those two key sequences is sent on pressing Backspace. By default both are bound to the same widget in vi-mode as well as emacs-mode.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash + urxvt: delay after ESC in Vi mode

Going over start of insert action in Z shell vi-mode

Explanation:

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