novim-mode

I made a plugin to do this too! https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode I'd never heard of OP's, I'm sure we can work together to share ideas.

See also: https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode (Plugin to make Vim behave more like a 'normal' editor)

I actually wrote a (Neo)vim plugin to make it behave like a conventional editor https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode

I've always found it curious that Vim is most often associated with modal editing. I consider it to be so much more than that; highly customisable, huge plugin ecosystem, ubiquitous, lightweight and works in the terminal. Modal editing never stuck with me, I just ended up writing more and more conventional shortcuts, so much so that I wrote my own "No Vim" mode plugin [1]. Just like VSCode and other editors have "Vim mode", so too does Vim have a "conventional mode". So don't let modal editing be a factor in your considerations. 1. https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode

I actually use Vim like this, in fact I wrote a plugin to go all the way and make it a completely "normal" editor [1]. It's endlessly surprising to me that still to this day Vim is most commonly considered through the lens of its keybindings. It's sooo much more than that! It's a lightweight terminal editor with one of the largest, if not the largest ecosystems of pioneering extensions. It really shouldn't be weird that you'd want to take advantage of all that without having to submit to the religion of modal editing. 1. https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode

I'm in the curiously rare position of being a long time Neo/vim user who doesn't use its modal features. Namely I have all my keybindings setup like a "normal" editor, CTRL+S to save etc. I say it's curious because I've always been surprised that Neo/vim is mainly celebrated as "that modal editor". Whereas for me I celebrate it as the most feature-packed and lightweight terminal editor. Neo/vim is sooo much more than merely its modal editing. With this new release of Neovim maybe there's renewed interest in what Vim is beyond the stereotypes. I wrote a plugin a few years ago that intelligently disables Neo/vim's NORMAL mode [1]. It always seemed such an obvious idea when the majority of editors have their own plugins to intelligently enable Vim-style modality. 1. https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode

I made a Vim plugin to use 'normal' sublime/atom-like keybindings: https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode I have an almost identical setup as that described in this post. Being in the terminal and integrating with tmux is a wonderful environment - lightweight and immersive. And all these Vim plugins are of such good quality - are Vim plugin authors perhaps of a different, geekier, ilk? So it's a shame that vanilla Vim is restricted to its special modal editing paradigm, there's so much more to it than that. BTW I post this on HN everytime I see a gushing Vim thread, apologies if you've seen it before. PS I'm also working on refactoring my tmux keybindings that do a similar thing - SHIFT+ARROW to select, CTRL+C to copy, CTRL+D to select the current word, etc, etc.

I always mention https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode when this topic of 'normal' terminal-based editors come up. I very much agree with the sentiment of Micro here - I'm very much of the Sublime/Atom ilk, but I also love living in tmux and my editor taking up minimal resources. So in the same way that you can introduce `vim-mode` into browsers (a la Vimium), you can introduce conventional `non-vim-mode` into Vim. Vim already has so much support for plugins, perhaps unprecedently so, then we can take advantage of that without creating a whole new editor.

> I’ve primarily stuck with [vim] because it’s an extensible editor that doesn’t hog all the resources and kill my machines. Exactly, BUT ... Vim has a non-mainstream shortcut interface, which I've always thought is an unfortunate caveat. So over the years I've actually managed to massage Vim into behaving like a 'normal' editor. It fits into a plugin if you're interested: https://github.com/tombh/novim-mode