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NonYaBidnezz
Asked: 2018-11-12 06:45:58 +0800 CST

How do I find the <Insert> key mapping in Vim so that I can create a similar map on MacOS?

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So, for me, the Insert key toggle was driving me to distraction on Mac since Ubuntu is my main OS. I had to hunt down the key mapping and duplicate it in macvim. How I've done this so far is to do:

  1. Start up vim on Ubuntu. Type :scriptnames to get the list of possibles.

  2. Cut and past that into a file named ~/file.list and remove anything that isn't a full path. Specifically the line numbers. Save the file. The file contains:

    /usr/share/vim/vimrc /usr/share/vim/vim80/debian.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/syntax.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/synload.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/syncolor.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/filetype.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/defaults.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/nosyntax.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/ftplugin.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/indent.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/getscriptPlugin.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/gzip.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/logiPat.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/manpager.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/matchparen.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/netrwPlugin.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/rrhelper.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/spellfile.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/tarPlugin.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/tohtml.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/vimballPlugin.vim /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/zipPlugin.vim

For the record, I've already manually checked everything in /etc/vim/ and ~/.vimrc

  1. To find out where the references are, I tried:

    for I in $(cat ~/file.list); do if [ -f $I ];then grep -Hn Insert $I;fi;done

This produced the following: 

/usr/share/vim/vim80/debian.vim:44:    autocmd GUIEnter * if !<SID>MapExists("<S-Insert>", "nvso") | execute "map <S-Insert> <MiddleMouse>" | endif
/usr/share/vim/vim80/debian.vim:45:    autocmd GUIEnter * if !<SID>MapExists("<S-Insert>", "ic") | execute "map! <S-Insert> <MiddleMouse>" | endif
/usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/matchparen.vim:67:    " not found, in Insert mode try character before the cursor

Unfortunately none of these is the right animal. I'm assuming that <S-Insert> is a reference to the Insert key as modified by some other key. Perhaps the Super key.

vim vimrc

1 Answers

  1. Argh! :-/

    What I've discovered is that MacOS actually intercepts the key. As a consequence, one cannot use it in vim.

    Instructions to figure this out about your OS:

    1. Open vim.
    2. Go to insert mode using 'i' or 'Insert' or what ever key your OS uses by default.
    3. Type Ctrl-v and press the key in question. If you see some input from the key, it means that it is available, otherwise not.

    My solution was to create an alias that maps the vim command to nano.

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