Using middle mouse click to paste text enters insert mode

vim

How can I switch off vim to automatically enter edit mode on middle mouse button click?

Background: I like to create command strings like JJJj to concat three lines and then go one line down, select this command string with the mouse and paste it again and again into vim using the middle mouse button. However, recently, vim automatically enters insert mode on middle mouse click rendering this procedure dysfunctional. I don't know whether it's a change in vim itself or of some default configuration of my distribution (Gentoo), but I need a way to switch that off again.

To clarify one thing: I don't have set mouse=a set (neither in my ~/.vimrc nor somewhere else. So for instance, left mouse clicks do not move the cursor to the clicked to location. This is probably the reason, why [cas]es tip to use set mouse= in ~/.vimrc doesn't solve this issue.

Also, I'm talking about vim (in xterm), not gvim.

System details:

Gentoo Linux
Vanilla Linux 4.9.13
X.Org X Server 1.19.3
XTerm(327)
vim 8.0.386 (seems modified by Gentoo)

Best Answer

This is fully answered here. See the excellent linked answer for details and alternative solution.

Short answer: put :set t_BE= in your .vimrc file.

Related Solutions

Vim shortcuts in insert mode

End (1 key) the only suggestion that has fewer keystrokes than
Esc A (2 keys + use of shift), the one you have suggested.
Ctrl-o $ OR Ctrl-o A (2 keys + control and shift), the most keystrokes yet.

The last one illustrates the use of Ctrl-o in Insert mode, which lets you interrupt insert mode to use exactly one normal mode command before returning.

Vim – Exiting Block Insert Mode with Ctrl-C

Ctrl-c and Esc are not guaranteed to be synonymous, and often differ. For example, in Insert mode, Esc will trigger abbreviations and go to Normal mode, whereas Ctrl-c will not trigger abbreviations nor the InsertLeave autocommand and go straight to Normal mode. Another example is in the old vi command line mode, Esc would actually execute the command as if you had hit Enter. Vim deliberately changed this because that behavior was deemed unintuitive and surprising, but you can still enable it by adding x to 'cpoptions'.

As for the blockwise visual operators, the blockwise-operators help tag has the following documentation:

Visual-block Insert                     *v_b_I*
With a blockwise selection, I{string}<ESC> will insert {string} at the start
of block on every line of the block, provided that the line extends into the
block.  Thus lines that are short will remain unmodified.  TABs are split to
retain visual columns.

Notice that only Esc is mentioned, not Ctrl-c.

So, no, Ctrl-c and Esc are not equivalent. It is never a shame to disabuse oneself of a misconception. Once you have realized that, you can decide what to do next. Immediately obvious options are to learn the differences and use the correct key, or decide that you don't need the functionality of one of the keys and remap it to match the other.

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