Vim Tips Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Tip 100 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created 2001 · complexity basic · author SBrueggemann · version 5.7


You're a newbie in Vim and need some :help help.txt? Well, help.txt reads:

Jump to a subject: Position the cursor on a tag between |bars| and hit CTRL-].

Unfortunately there is no "]" key on German keyboards. On Win32 try CTRL-+ (Strg-+), on Linux console I use CTRL-AltGr-9 (Strg-AltGr-9). On UNIX-like OS CTRL-5 works, too.

Comments[]

If you know the ascii code of the ] (93 or 0x5d), you could create a mapping to it to guarantee your combination would work -- the German keyboard might have some other character that could be used:

noremap <c-theChar> <c-]>

You can get the ] by typing a control-v followed by 93<Space> or control-v followed by x5d.


I suggest to use:

nnoremap t <C-]>

the t functionality is rarly used and it make sense. (t =tag, and jumping back with control-t)


I prefer this mapping:

nnoremap ü <C-]>
nnoremap Ü <C-O>

Who needs umlauts in normal mode?


On the German keyboard, using anything with an umlaut (or, except on de-CH keyboards where it isn't present, ß which has no "standard" Vim binding either) makes sense in Normal mode. Similarly, on other national layouts, you may want to use a key for an accented letter, or in general for any non-ASCII character — if you have one. OTOH, on any keyboard layout, Vim reserves most F keys for "user mappings", with one notable (and traditional) exception which is F1 = Help, so one possibility suggests itself, valid for any national keyboard (except maybe on some laptops where F keys are hard to get at), as follows:

map <S-F1> <C-]>

If you don't like using F-keys with a modifier, you could e.g. use F2 instead.

About the t (movement "till") key: the more I use Vim and the more I use it. A year ago I didn't even know that the function existed. Now I would need to assign it to the {rhs} of a new mapping if it were unavailable. In general it is dangerous in Vim to "steal" existing keys for a different purpose: the main argument against the mswin.vim plugin is precisely that it steals quite useful keys to remap already-existing functions to them. --Tonymec 10:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Advertisement