[artursapek]

lol is anyone really gonna use vim with the touchbar's escape key? Reaching up there with a physical keyboard is bad enough that I always remap caps lock to emit escape on tap (and control on hold). I can't imagine any vim power user being attracted to this new touch bar thing. In fact this MBPro release was the tipping point for me switching away from using a Mac to using Linux on a Thinkpad (and I will never go back).

[sctb]

This is tediously off-topic. Please don't do this.

[ihuman]

I thought it was a reference to the React Native Touchbar demo's joke escape key, which alerts "Hello, vim!" when you press it.

[artursapek]

Yes, it was. I forgot how uptight HN is about discussions.

[brianshaler]

This is an argument that the TouchBar should not be considered a deterrent for vim users since they shouldn't reach up to that row in the first place.

Also, this seems to be a generic complaint about the TouchBar as a feature of MacBooks Pro, which has been discussed at great length in threads about the feature, and not relevant to this post, which is about adding TouchBar support to React Native apps.

[wlesieutre]

I learned in a previous HN thread that the use of Esc originated with the ADM-3A [1] keyboard layout. It was next to Q where modern keyboards have the Tab key. In that context it makes sense to use, but yeah, Esc is not in a good place today.

Just me, or is it pretty silly to have the "STAY ON THE HOME ROW!" HJKL cursor keys, and then be reaching way out with your pinky all the time? Had people been frequently remapping it to caps before these MBPs came along, or did everyone just suck it up and assume it belongs there because reasons?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A

[rhizome]

I don't think of it as "reaching way out" so much as "whacking the corner."

[wlesieutre]

I have a similar experience with AutoCAD where "mash esc repeatedly" means "get out of whatever I was doing," and I do it all the time. But AutoCAD's UI isn't designed to keep your fingers on the home row; it's a weird half-and-half mix of CLI and GUI where your hands will have to move no matter what you do. The inconsistency of whacking the corner with what I know of the rest of vi(m)'s design is what I find weird.

But like I said, not a vim user, so I'm grasping at straws here.

[pgoggijr]

I and most everybody I know use caps lock remapped to Escape. It gets rid of the annoying caps lock key, is easier to press, and solves the missing escape key problem!

[vuldin]

I'm doing this, I hate the fallout of having caps lock on in vim and not knowing it.

[StavrosK]

No, swap caps lock and control, it's much more useful.

Actually, maybe not that useful on a mac, but still more useful than the esc key. I've remapped esc to jj in vim, and it works beautifully (I very rarely actually need to type jj, so it works well).

[eyko]

I've used vim on and off for about 15 years now. I now use Emacs + evil or any other editor with vim key bindings. I've never remapped the ESC key.

Do you all remap the key at the OS level or do you remap it in your .vimrc? Getting rid of caps lock is attractive enough that I'm willing to give it a try. I never knew it was a thing and that that many people remapped ESC.

I'm also wondering what happens to the caps lock green light on the Macbook. Does it stay off since caps lock is never actually enabled?

[V99]

Sierra includes a built-in option to map any of the modifier keys to Escape. And if you use caps lock, the light does stay off.

[rimantas]

Caps lock on Mac has also some slight delay for the activation (to avoid being turned on by accident). I gues this is disabled on remap too?

[colordrops]

Some of us use ctrl-[ rather than escape, since you don't need to lift your hand. But a significant number of people still use ESC.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

Ctrl-[ is escape, as far as the terminal is concerned at least

[st3v3r]

I might. Otherwise I'll remap Caps lock to Esc, or use the other shortcut.

And for me, the touch bar is one of the coolest things I've seen on a laptop in a long time. It has a huge potential, and is going to be much more useful to me than those keys were, as I never really used them.

[eknkc]

I use vim for quick edits only, when I'm on a shell doing some config or authoring a commit etc. Esc felt weird for a day or so then my hand just adopted to the touch esc key, not that bad. Might be a lot harder for a hardcore user though.

[atmosx]

Remember that you can always remap if that's a problem.

[OhSoHumble]

I can't depend on custom key mappings if I'm sshing into servers.

[brassic]

Why not? The servers don't know what physical keys you are pressing.