The Smart Home function allows the cursor to toggle between the start position and the first non-whitespace character position of the line. This is useful for skipping past indentation, whether it be tabs or spaces. Likewise, the Smart End function toggles past trailing whitespaces at the end of a line.

This topic has been discussed before, see Smart home.

The reason I am bringing this up again is because previous implementations of the Smart Home functionality have not worked well over lines that are wrapped. The implementation below works pleasingly well even when lines are wrapped, stepping through the wrapped lines by <Home> or <End> one by one. It also solves the "<Home> for one character on a line" insert mode problem, and is Replace mode friendly.

Of course, cursor positioning can be achieved via vanilla Vim way: using 0, ^, g0, g$, g_, etc, but it's easier and faster when two keys take care of all of the functions. Especially over wrapped lines.

"place in vimrc
nmap <silent><Home> :call SmartHome("n")<CR>
nmap <silent><End> :call SmartEnd("n")<CR>
imap <silent><Home> <C-r>=SmartHome("i")<CR>
imap <silent><End> <C-r>=SmartEnd("i")<CR>
vmap <silent><Home> <Esc>:call SmartHome("v")<CR>
vmap <silent><End> <Esc>:call SmartEnd("v")<CR>

function SmartHome(mode)
  let curcol = col(".")
  "gravitate towards beginning for wrapped lines
  if curcol > indent(".") + 2
    call cursor(0, curcol - 1)
  endif
  if curcol == 1 || curcol > indent(".") + 1
    if &wrap
      normal g^
    else
      normal ^
    endif
  else
    if &wrap
      normal g0
    else
      normal 0
    endif
  endif
  if a:mode == "v"
    normal msgv`s
  endif
  return ""
endfunction

function SmartEnd(mode)
  let curcol = col(".")
  let lastcol = a:mode == "i" ? col("$") : col("$") - 1
  "gravitate towards ending for wrapped lines
  if curcol < lastcol - 1
    call cursor(0, curcol + 1)
  endif
  if curcol < lastcol
    if &wrap
      normal g$
    else
      normal $
    endif
  else
    normal g_
  endif
  "correct edit mode cursor position, put after current character
  if a:mode == "i"
    call cursor(0, col(".") + 1)
  endif
  if a:mode == "v"
    normal msgv`s
  endif
  return ""
endfunction

CommentsEdit

To make SmartEnd work properly with multi-byte characters, use current character's length to move cursor rightward, instead of move by 1 byte.

Reason: under a multi-byte character, move cursor 1 byte further might have no effect.

For example, use yl and byteidx() to get the length (this overwrites current used register)

function SmartEnd(mode)
  let curcol = col(".")
  let lastcol = a:mode == "i" ? col("$") : col("$") - 1
  "gravitate towards ending for wrapped lines
  if curcol < lastcol - 1
    normal yl
    let l:charlen = byteidx(getreg(), 1)
    call cursor(0, curcol + l:charlen)
  endif
  if curcol < lastcol
    if &wrap
      normal g$
    else
      normal $
    endif
  else
    normal g_
  endif
  "correct edit mode cursor position, put after current character
  if a:mode == "i"
    normal yl
    let l:charlen = byteidx(getreg(), 1)
    call cursor(0, col(".") + l:charlen)
  endif
  if a:mode == "v"
    normal msgv`s
  endif
  return ""
endfunction

This tip and VimTip315 and gave me some great ideas for my own <Home> and <End> keys.

I also studied some great ideas from a URL mentioned in VimTip315: http://hermitte.free.fr/vim/ressources/vimfiles/plugin/homeLikeVC++_vim.html

Try putting these in your vimrc.

" map <Home> to move to first word in line
" if at first word, move to beginning of line
" if at beginning of line, move to beginning of window
" if at beginning of window, move to beginning of file
nnoremap <silent> <Home> :call SmartHome("n")<CR>
inoremap <silent> <Home> <C-O>:call SmartHome("i")<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <Home> <Esc>:call SmartHome("v")<CR>
function! SmartHome(mode)
  if col('.') == 1
    if line('.') == 1
      return
    elseif winline() == &scrolloff+1
      normal! m`gg
    else
      normal! m`H0
    endif
  elseif strpart(getline('.'), -1, col('.')) =~ '^\s\+$'
    normal! 0
  else
    normal! ^
  endif
  if a:mode == "v"
    normal! msgv`s
  endif
endfun

" map <End> to move to end of line
" if at end of line, move to end of window
" if at end of window, move to end of file
nnoremap <silent> <End> :call SmartEnd("n")<CR>
inoremap <silent> <End> <C-O>:call SmartEnd("i")<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <End> <Esc>:call SmartEnd("v")<CR>
function! SmartEnd(mode)
  if col('.') < col('$')-1
    normal! $
  elseif winline() < winheight(0) - &scrolloff
    normal! m`L$
  else
    normal! m`G$
  endif
  if a:mode == "v"
    normal! msgv`s
  endif
endfun