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Comment by commandersaki

12 hours ago

I've been a (n)vim user for 20+ years now, but I hate vi-mode in the shell. However if I feel that I need to do a complex command, I just do ctrl-x+e to open up in neovim (with EDITOR=nvim set). I find it a good middle ground.

It’s strange. I have heard this from lots of others too. I think I am an anomaly here. I can’t live without shell vi mode

  • it is an additional burden to switch to shell vi mode, it is not the standard. Maybe you can put it in all of yout bashrc files but you will probably hear some swearing from the people logging to your machines :).

  • You're not alone, I heavily rely on vi mode and often struggle if I'm on someone else's machine and can't use it. I always wonder how you're supposed to work without it but I never dare to ask

I'm the same and in my opinion this is the best of both worlds. Taking the time to learn some of the regular (emacs-style) shortcuts is one of the best investments I've ever done. Even just CTRL+Y and the likes.

edit: And of course, CTRL+R, the best time saver of all

Huh. I don’t use vi-mode for more than jumping to the beginning or end of a line, which I like a lot.

I used to hate it because I'd sometimes change modes without realizing it, but I began to appreciate it a lot more when I added a mode indicator -- a red 'N' on the rightmost side of the input line.

Agree.

I WANT to love it - and if I was only ever working on one, or a small number of systems that I was the only one working on I’d probably do it. I’m ALL about customizing my environment.

However ssh into various servers through the day (some of which are totally ephemeral), and having to code switch my brain back and forth between vim mode and emacs mode in the shell would just slow me down and be infuriating each time I connect to a new box.