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Only me? (sh.itjust.works)
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[-] kythrea@lemmy.world 125 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

word processor users when they try vim (me):

[-] marcos@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

When $EDITOR is vim, but I expected anything else:

opens file, with small text on the top; text begins changing; text duplicates in size, then triples; text returns to original size; text increases in size to fit several screens...

Then my great reflexes kick on and I notice something wrong :)

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

Do you prefer when EDITOR is set to emacs?

[-] marcos@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Personally, yes. But the default being nano is very sensible.

[-] urandom@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

The default should be mcedit. Much more usable than nano

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[-] FedX@quokk.au 47 points 1 month ago

I will legitimately go esc, :w, i on Google Docs to try and save the document...

[-] rescue_toaster@lemmy.zip 31 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Escape in some email clients cancels a new email. I had to retype many emails before email clients began auto-saving drafts.

[-] NominatedNemesis@reddthat.com 7 points 1 month ago

The paiiiin! How many hours I lost because of this?

SpoilerProbably less than I used to configure my neovim...

[-] TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

my work client cancels the new mail without there being a draft, though that may be because of muscle memory pressing a key combo after esc. its major pain o7

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[-] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 month ago

Explain pls for us vimless noobs

[-] FedX@quokk.au 26 points 1 month ago

Direction navigation in vim is hjkl.

[-] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 month ago

I know I'm just a vim-less heathen, but using letters for navigation in a text editor seems kind stupid when arrows exist.

[-] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 1 month ago

No, you're 100% right. The only reason it's this way is this: https://pikuma.com/blog/origins-of-vim-text-editor

These literally were the arrow keys on the machine that vim was originally developed on.

[-] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 month ago

Why the hell didn't they go with JIKL or something instead then, so the pattern at least resembles the direction it navigates?

[-] LSNLDN@slrpnk.net 26 points 1 month ago

Wasd was revolutionary at the time

[-] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 month ago

This really just shows how fundamentally terrible product developers engineers are.

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[-] aradgus@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 month ago

so your finges dont have to leave the home row. Its acually peak when you used hjkl for some time

[-] tpihkal@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

You should boycott vim. That'll teach 'em.

[-] expr@piefed.social 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The reason it's so popular is because it provides directional navigation on the home row, with the direction that's by far the most common (down) under your strongest, dominant finger (the index finger).

It's much better for both efficiency and ergonomics than arrow keys.

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 8 points 1 month ago

Why would you move your hand to arrow keys when the letter are already under your fingers?

ESC, use-letter-to-navigate, i, type, ESC, navigate, i, type

Really simple. On my keyboard I re-mapped ESC to TAB so I don't even have to move my hand to switch between navigate and insert modes.

[-] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago

So you've transferred the required hand move from the right hand to the left, and added extra required keystrokes to accomplish the same task. I don't see how that isn't worse.

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 5 points 1 month ago

No, it's a key stroke, not hand move. I don't have to reposition my hand to hit ESC. You do have to reposition your hand to use arrow keys.

Also, you usually move the cursor by more than just one character. It's one extra keystroke to reposition the cursor, not to move it by one char. You have shortcuts to jump to end of file, specific line, end of line or even create and jump to bookmarks. All this with just standard keys, without repositioning your hands to use the mouse or arrow keys.

[-] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

Your keyboard must be slightly different than the one I have in front of me right now. Home row to esc and home row to arrows is the same distance on mine.

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 points 1 month ago

First, as I said, I remapped ESC to TAB key. Tab is very close.

Second, it's different to hit ESC ones than to use arrows keys to move around. To go back to home row after using arrow keys I have to feel around the keys trying to find "j" again. Or look at keyboard. I don't have to do that after hitting ESC once.

[-] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

I'm not bothering to talk about non default layouts. Remapping is a separate discussion, since I could just as easily say it's better to remap wasd to the arrow function and have the FN key toggle it, since a much higher number of people already have that navigation method trained into muscle memory. This is a preference game no matter what, but it becomes an especially pointless discussion if you base it on custom layouts.

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[-] tyler@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

I use layers so esc is actually almost directly under my pinky.

[-] msage@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

Moving hands is an extremely time-consuming task when you're typing 60+ words per minute. Couple of keystrokes are much much faster than relocating your hand twice.

[-] msage@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

I have it instead of CapsLock, tab is too useful to forego.

But yes, arrow keys are too far, and I avoid them everytime I can, including in Shell

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, sorry. I have:

Esc -> Caps lock (useless so far away)

Caps Lock -> Tab (the most useful so closest)

Tab -> Esc -> second most useful

I had it for so long that I forgot which one is which :)

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[-] meowcar42O@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago

moving my hand this much SUCKS

[-] graycube@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Instead of using the arrow keys most vi & him users navigate the cursor around the doc by using letter keys. I do it so subcociously now I am not sure which direction is the j when I use my phone.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

But keyboards have arrow keys now?

[-] placebo@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 month ago

Look down at your keyboard. Look at the letters, look at the arrows. You can use hjkl without moving your right hand at all, it's always in a position to enter commands or text. With arrows, you'd constantly need to switch positions.

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[-] Bonje@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

20Gwwbcwkurva:wq

[-] bebabalula@feddit.dk 7 points 1 month ago

I cannot begin to describe how many times I’ve had to re-type the same info in some input form because I hit esc when I had first finished it!

[-] NABDad@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

It's been so long since I worked on a machine where I couldn't use the cursor keys in vi, I don't think I'd even be able to anymore.

[-] FancyPantsFIRE@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I only understand this reference because I worked for a company at one point that had a large number of NeXT and Solaris hosts that only had vi installed with letter key navigation, so my muscle memory does not use arrow keys.

[-] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 4 points 1 month ago

Coders use word docs?

I'm not a programmer but I still open up notepad and write in markdown.

It's just faster.

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[-] Aneb@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Here's what my terminal usually looks like

@>vim srv/txt.txt Writes a bunch of lines of code/words/docker containers. [ESC] :sq Can't edit file without sudo :q! @>sudo vim srv/txt.txt 🥹

[-] replicat@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

ITT: People who don't use vim and insist we have arrow keys now so don't need hjkl anymore.

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Erm. This would be vi? vim has arrow key support.

[-] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 month ago

Implying that vim users use arrows instead of hjkl? Blasphemy!

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I do :p and I use vim a lot.

[-] whatiswrongwithyou@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

When I start a new roguelike:

Activate [j]ump ability, view [l]og, no item underfoot to mark for [k]eeping, [h]ide.

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this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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