Annoyances when migrating from Vim

Complaints & Improvements
1

Hi all,

Having used Kakoune for about two weeks time now, I really like the visual approach. Coming from Vim though, I’ve a couple of annoyances maybe someone could clarify or give a solution to.

  1. How do you quickly jump around in a line? I’m used to hitting f to find a char and replace it by a another one using r. Kakoune selects a region when using f or t, so it forces me to use ; after every jump to narrow my selection before doing a change or replace command. Is there a quicker way?

  2. Along the same lines: when changing/deleting to a certain char, I hit f to find the spot. However, it could be the first jump is not far enough. I can repeat the command using <a-.>, but then Kakoune selects a new region instead of extending the existing one. Is there a better way?

  3. <a-h> does not do the same thing as ^ in Vim. I’d like a way to select to the first non blank character on a line and operate on it.

  4. What is the equivalent of Vim’s 2cc in Kakoune? If I hit 2Xc (which, alas, is not as quick to hit as 2cc), Kakoune deletes 2 lines including the line end and starts insert mode at column 0 with the contents of the next line after the cursor. I find this particularly annoying for a couple of reasons:

    • Kakoune does not take into account the indentation of the surrounding lines.
    • The line I’m editing is polluted with the contents of the next line which moves along when I type.
    • I have to hit return after my changes to re-enter the end of line which was deleted.
    • There is the fact that 2Xc or 2Xd might delete three lines when my cursor happend to be on an empty line, which I find really inconsistent…
3 Likes
2

hl is more keys that ;, but they’re keys directly under my fingertips.

Gi

That’s Shift-G to open the goto menu in “extend selection” mode, and i for “first non-blank character”.

I’ve learned to make selections and so forth visually. That is, I don’t count two lines and type a 2 before the command, I just bounce on the X key until I can see that all the text I wanted to select is selected. Maybe that’s two presses, maybe that’s three presses, whatever it takes.

1 Like
3

; should also be directly under your finger, no?

4

Not on a Dvorak keyboard.

Admittedly l is also not on the home-row for Dvorak, but it’s a key I use an awful lot more than ;, so I’m more in the habit of hitting it.

5

hl is more keys that ; , but they’re keys directly under my fingertips.

Although it is under my fingers, it is more keys to hit to make a correction I don’t wanne make.

Gi. That’s Shift-G to open the goto menu in “extend selection” mode, and i for “first non-blank character”.

Thanks, that does the trick!

I’ve learned to make selections and so forth visually. That is, I don’t count two lines and type a 2 before the command, I just bounce on the X key until I can see that all the text I wanted to select is selected. Maybe that’s two presses, maybe that’s three presses, whatever it takes.

It really does not make a difference for my reasoning between hitting 2Xc or XXc, the effect is the same. That means that Kakoune still

  • puts me in column 0,
  • deletes the end of line,
  • requires me to correct that afterwards, and
  • is not consistent in deleting 2 or 3 lines depending on the line to be empty or not.

Additionally: how do I correct my selection when my fingers selected an extra line? There is no “deselect line” motion as B is for W…

6

Your common case is one off typos?

7

Yeah, I know that feeling. Sometimes, editing text with Kakoune feels a little bit like playing Snake, since you have to think about where the anchor is as well as the cursor.

I use K for this. It’s not a complete “undo” since X moves to the end of the following line while K does not move to the end of the previous line, but manually adjusting the end of the selection is usually easier than deselecting everything and starting from scratch.

8 
map global normal <a-X> K<a-x>
9

additionaly, opposite command can be acheived:

define-command -hidden \
    -docstring "alt-x: wrapper around alt x" \
    alt-x %{ evaluate-commands %sh{
        if [ $(printf "%s" "${kak_selection}" | wc -m) -eq 1 ]; then
            printf "%s\n" "execute-keys <a-x>"
        else
            printf "%s\n" "execute-keys J<a-x>"
        fi
    }}

mapping this function to alt x will keep default altx behavior for single character selections, and will select next line otherwise

10

My common case is that I don’t want to correct a movement if that’s possible…

11

Yeah, wonderful. Only thing is it won’t select the next line down on a second hit of <a-x>, but in other cases works as I’d like it to work.

Although I find it a little bit disturbing to call some shell commands for a normal mode keystroke, it seems not to lag.

12

For me if I press <a-x> first time it selects the line, if I press <a-x> second time it selects next line.

I think the code should be adjusted though:

define-command -hidden \
-docstring "alt-x: wrapper around alt x" \
alt-x %{
    try %{
        execute-keys "<a-k>.\n<ret>"
        execute-keys "J<a-x>"
    } catch %{
        execute-keys "<a-x>"
    }
}

This variant doesn’t use shell, and is more like plain <a-x>

13

How to make x select lines downward and X select lines upward?

1 Like
14

Sorry, I ment it doesn’t select the next line on a second hit when on an empty line.

15

Ah, that’s default <a-x> behavior, and it would be a bit harder to workaround this, see: https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/issues/2590

16

Ah, yes, totally agree with that.

17

Try the following mappings in your kakrc

For 1:

use

map global normal <a-r> ';r'

only r is actually mapped to anything so tonnes of room to change the bindings there.

Edit - Nevermind, R and <a-R> are both mapped to something but <a-r> is still free

For 2:

map global normal f      ';F'
map global normal <a-f>  ';<a-F>'
map global normal .      ';<a-.>'

only downside of this mapping is that it slightly changes the behaviour for when you reach the last f.
you also need to rebind the normal .

But this lets you press . to repeat the last action as per normal but <a-.> will always force selection.
This doesn’t work for T because you have to move past the character to do the next T. I have a mapping for that I can post but it’s kinda complicated and I never use T anyway.

For 3:

already answered

For 4:

AFAIK X4Jc is identical to 5cc in Vim. A lot more keys tho. But I’m already holding down Shift so it’s not a big deal to press <shift+x> then just hammer j while still holding shift.
If you want to go up press <shift+k> but if you reach the original line then you want to go <a-;> before press <shift+k> or, as other posters said, you don’t get the whole line.

3 Likes
18

This may not be his common case, but it is mine! Is there a more efficient way possible?

19

If this is a common case for you @alex.boswell – I would recommend a custom binding for it. I have a lot of custom bindings just for stuff I happen to use a lot that shouldn’t be generalized.

1 Like