[JadeNB]

> emacs has plenty of modes ….

This is not the sense in which vim is called a modal editor—at least, I think of it as meaningfully different. In different Emacs major modes, for example, the tab key might create different indentations; but, in different vim modes, the 'x' key might remove a character (in normal mode) or insert an 'x' character (in insert mode).

I think of the statement "vim is a modal editor" as "vim replaced key chords with mode toggles"—a different editor would replace "press 'x' in normal mode" by something like "press 'M-x'."

Again, I am certainly aware that Emacs modes can do much more than just offer context-sensitive indentation, but my impression (as a non-Emacs-er) is that they are usually meant to offer subtle customisation rather than full-scale re-engineering of the editor.

[hibbelig]

Emacs has "modes" for:

- File/directory browsing (think Norton Commander) - Email client (several of them) - Terminal (vt100) - Remote file browsing/editing (think WinSCP, Cyberduck) - Games (Sokoban, Tetris)

It's not "subtle".