4 ms·

Well, for me, to record my thought as quickly as possible, it is vitally important for the editor to always be in the input mode, I can’t lose time to remember

Well, for me, to record my thought as quickly as possible, it is vitally important for the editor to always be in the input mode, I can’t lose time to remember the modal context I am currently in (and emacs is hardly better, as it can suddenly switch its focus to some command buffer, and not come back unless some specific action is taken).

Lio 4y ago
I don’t want to advocate for you to use something that doesn’t fit your preferences but for the record Vim/NeoVim can work that way too. You can start it in Insert mode and you can have it stay in Insert mode as you run a single command using C-o. There’s also a plethora of Insert mode ctrl shortcuts which are worth learning in addition to Command mode stuff. If you’re on the emacs path you'll be able to do all the same stuff, just differently. The major point is that terminal based software is fully keyboard driven and you can commit the shortcuts to muscle memory and compose them.
- atemerev 4y ago
  That’s interesting, thank you.
chongli 4y ago
Your complaint would make sense if all of my text editing consisted of sequential writing in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. But then, I wouldn't need a text editor at all since I can do that with cat. In reality, I rarely ever do that kind of writing. 99% of the time I am working on some existing document, such as a source code file, and so I need an editor optimized for random access editing. Vim is that editor. As a long time vim user I am in normal mode all of the time. When I sit down at a vim session I haven't touched in a while I press escape a few times to make sure I'm in normal mode. Then while I'm editing I am continuously typing various motion and change commands, some of which enter insert mode, and then quickly making the change before escaping back to normal mode. Because I am in normal mode all the time (or perhaps vice versa), I spend most of my time jumping around the file and reading what is already there. Extremely rarely am I looking at a completely empty file where the only useful thing to do is start inserting text. And even then I am often typing some command to pull in text from another file or as the result of a bash command.

Lio 4y ago

I don’t want to advocate for you to use something that doesn’t fit your preferences but for the record Vim/NeoVim can work that way too. You can start it in Insert mode and you can have it stay in Insert mode as you run a single command using C-o. There’s also a plethora of Insert mode ctrl shortcuts which are worth learning in addition to Command mode stuff. If you’re on the emacs path you'll be able to do all the same stuff, just differently. The major point is that terminal based software is fully keyboard driven and you can commit the shortcuts to muscle memory and compose them.

atemerev 4y ago
That’s interesting, thank you.

chongli 4y ago

Your complaint would make sense if all of my text editing consisted of sequential writing in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. But then, I wouldn't need a text editor at all since I can do that with cat. In reality, I rarely ever do that kind of writing. 99% of the time I am working on some existing document, such as a source code file, and so I need an editor optimized for random access editing. Vim is that editor. As a long time vim user I am in normal mode all of the time. When I sit down at a vim session I haven't touched in a while I press escape a few times to make sure I'm in normal mode. Then while I'm editing I am continuously typing various motion and change commands, some of which enter insert mode, and then quickly making the change before escaping back to normal mode. Because I am in normal mode all the time (or perhaps vice versa), I spend most of my time jumping around the file and reading what is already there. Extremely rarely am I looking at a completely empty file where the only useful thing to do is start inserting text. And even then I am often typing some command to pull in text from another file or as the result of a bash command.