On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Scott Smith <scottnelsonsmith@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm newly coming back to the Mac after a long hiatus (late 1980's as a developer); been Windows in the interim.

I still have to work periodically in Windows boxes and am somewhat forlorn at the layout of the navigation keys on the Mac (as in most laptops). This is where VI shines; the navigation can be accomplished in the "center" of the keyboard where key layouts are consistent. David Wooten maps a single key (http://lists.macromates.com/textmate/2006-January/007683.html) and Kirk Fitzpatrick was attempting a plugin (http://lists.macromates.com/textmate-plugins/2007-January/000022.html).

Anyone figure out anything like what VI has or have any ideas? I'm considering building something that intercepts keystrokes right out of the operating system so that TextMate has to know very little.

Thanks in advance,
--
Scott Smith - Old Fart Developer

While I can appreciate your desires, I'm not sure how this will work in practice.

VI maps navigation keys to letter keys because it is modal, you are either in text mode or non-text mode.

Textmate is modeless, and in that sense it's much more like Emacs than VI.

If you really prefer the VI way there are nice OS X/Cocoa variants of VIM.

And I'm REALLY not trying to start an editor war.