5 ms·

Bravo! From the other comments, I guess you are going against the 'common sense' of vim users, but actually hjml has been the reason I never bothered with vim.

Bravo! From the other comments, I guess you are going against the 'common sense' of vim users, but actually hjml has been the reason I never bothered with vim. Having to replace years (or decades) of T-arrowkeys (in windows, and in every FPS) seems utterly insane to me (and probably to most people that grew up with them)

anonymouz 14y ago
You don't have to. The arrows work just fine. You can use 'hjkl' (or whatever pleases you), and many people choose to, for the main reason that having navigation keys in the home row is really nice. Having navigation on 'hjkl' for me was never about a lack of arrow keys, and has always been about convenience. The reason it's specific to Vi/m is that you need a modal editor to be able to pull it off.
- martinced 14y ago
  But it's easier for a touch-typist to hit 'i' than 'h' (your middle finger doesn't stretch as much when hitting 'i' than your index when hitting 'h'). Try it. Then in addition to that ijkl is more logical than hjkl.
cgag 14y ago
How can you be so attached to taking your hand off the home row to move around? Or to that arrow shape? This comment thread is kind of blowing my mind, how can so many people have an issue with this? It's such a tiny simple thing to put into muscle memory. Are you guys all hunt and peck typers? I feel a little bad for being insulting, but it really is hard to imagine so much resistance to memorizing j=down, k=up. The hjkl pattern is the same pattern as the arrows at the top of dance dance revolution and people seem to pick that up pretty quickly.
- martinced 14y ago
  Touch-typist here: I don't hunt and peck and I can tell you that from a pure probabilistic standpoint if you're entering a typing contest with me you'll probably look like the one hunt and pecking ; ) It's not that it's hard to memorize: Emacs' 'p' for up and 'n' aren't hard to memorize. They're just utterly dumb. Just like 'jk'. You're not sounding insulting: you're sounding like someone who has never put any thought into that issue arguing vs someone who did. I'm an Emacs user and yet it's 'ijkl' for me (it's Emacs heresy of course). Now I don't doubt that dance dance revolution players are representative of professional programmers... But lots of gamers (eg professional first-person shooter players) do use the inverted T arrow principle to quickly move up/down/right/left -- typically WASD and sometimes ESDF. It simply makes more sense to "train your muscle memory" to something that also logically makes a lot of sense. You know, like... Up to go up. Down to go down. Left to go left. Right to go right.
UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
I wish Linux just came with Edit.com. Arrow keys for movement, letter keys for input (what a novelty?!), and a working mouse. All available since MS Dos 6 or earlier. I understand that some people like VIM and or Emacs, but why must UNIX people force such arcane editors down people's throats? Edit.com put them to shame almost twenty years ago. Yes, I know, if you spend YEARS learning clever key combinations you can be ever so slightly more efficient, what a novelty...
- msh 14y ago
  Nano and pico gives you that... Available on most unix systems.
  - tracker1 14y ago
    +1 for nano... I only make relatively quick config changes from a console... so nano is much less of a learning curve... I'd rather not have to memorize a bunch of commands for my general text editing. I do prefer a GUI editor, and ironically enough, Sublime Text has been increasingly my goto editor (needing to remember certain hotkeys, but still works for general arrow-key and mouse editing).
- jlgreco 14y ago
  You can use Nano/Pico if you want edit.com capabilities... but there is a reason nobody takes them seriously. Non-modal (I consider Emacs modal too) non-programmable editors are toys.
- antiterra 14y ago
  Vim happily uses arrow keys for movement and you can easily learn the basics in a day. Saying that edit puts it to shame is ridiculous, and I'm someone who occasionally types 'edit' out of habit in a dos prompt to edit text files.

anonymouz 14y ago

You don't have to. The arrows work just fine. You can use 'hjkl' (or whatever pleases you), and many people choose to, for the main reason that having navigation keys in the home row is really nice. Having navigation on 'hjkl' for me was never about a lack of arrow keys, and has always been about convenience. The reason it's specific to Vi/m is that you need a modal editor to be able to pull it off.

martinced 14y ago
But it's easier for a touch-typist to hit 'i' than 'h' (your middle finger doesn't stretch as much when hitting 'i' than your index when hitting 'h'). Try it. Then in addition to that ijkl is more logical than hjkl.

cgag 14y ago

How can you be so attached to taking your hand off the home row to move around? Or to that arrow shape? This comment thread is kind of blowing my mind, how can so many people have an issue with this? It's such a tiny simple thing to put into muscle memory. Are you guys all hunt and peck typers? I feel a little bad for being insulting, but it really is hard to imagine so much resistance to memorizing j=down, k=up. The hjkl pattern is the same pattern as the arrows at the top of dance dance revolution and people seem to pick that up pretty quickly.

martinced 14y ago
Touch-typist here: I don't hunt and peck and I can tell you that from a pure probabilistic standpoint if you're entering a typing contest with me you'll probably look like the one hunt and pecking ; ) It's not that it's hard to memorize: Emacs' 'p' for up and 'n' aren't hard to memorize. They're just utterly dumb. Just like 'jk'. You're not sounding insulting: you're sounding like someone who has never put any thought into that issue arguing vs someone who did. I'm an Emacs user and yet it's 'ijkl' for me (it's Emacs heresy of course). Now I don't doubt that dance dance revolution players are representative of professional programmers... But lots of gamers (eg professional first-person shooter players) do use the inverted T arrow principle to quickly move up/down/right/left -- typically WASD and sometimes ESDF. It simply makes more sense to "train your muscle memory" to something that also logically makes a lot of sense. You know, like... Up to go up. Down to go down. Left to go left. Right to go right.

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago

I wish Linux just came with Edit.com. Arrow keys for movement, letter keys for input (what a novelty?!), and a working mouse. All available since MS Dos 6 or earlier. I understand that some people like VIM and or Emacs, but why must UNIX people force such arcane editors down people's throats? Edit.com put them to shame almost twenty years ago. Yes, I know, if you spend YEARS learning clever key combinations you can be ever so slightly more efficient, what a novelty...

msh 14y ago
Nano and pico gives you that... Available on most unix systems.
- tracker1 14y ago
  +1 for nano... I only make relatively quick config changes from a console... so nano is much less of a learning curve... I'd rather not have to memorize a bunch of commands for my general text editing. I do prefer a GUI editor, and ironically enough, Sublime Text has been increasingly my goto editor (needing to remember certain hotkeys, but still works for general arrow-key and mouse editing).
jlgreco 14y ago
You can use Nano/Pico if you want edit.com capabilities... but there is a reason nobody takes them seriously. Non-modal (I consider Emacs modal too) non-programmable editors are toys.
antiterra 14y ago
Vim happily uses arrow keys for movement and you can easily learn the basics in a day. Saying that edit puts it to shame is ridiculous, and I'm someone who occasionally types 'edit' out of habit in a dos prompt to edit text files.