These are some awesome options: emacs-24, evil-mode (using vim bindings in emacs), and undo-tree.
However, when I'm in edit mode (insert mode), I sometimes jump around for a number inserts, deletes, etc. before hitting escape and leaving insert mode.
"Undo" takes the whole insert (including deletes) as one edit. For example, I can't undo the paragraph I accidentally deleted without undo'ing the whole delete!
Is there any way to fix this?
Here are some related links:
Here are the vim mappings that convert certain vim commands so that they can be undone:
inoremap <c-u> <c-g>u<c-u>
inoremap <c-w> <c-g>u<c-w>
inoremap <End> <C-g>u<End>
inoremap <BS> <c-g>u<BS>
inoremap <CR> <c-g>u<CR>
inoremap <del> <c-g>u<del>
What is needed is for the undo mode inside of emacs evil undo-tree to track additional events besides just leaving insert mode. For example, you should be able to stay in insert mode a long time and then undo any sort of delete, cut, paste.
Try evil-want-fine-undo:
Whether actions are undone in several steps. There are two possible choices: nil ("no") means that all changes made during insert state, including a possible delete after a change operation, are collected in a single undo step. Non-nil ("yes") means that undo steps are determined according to Emacs heuristics, and no attempt is made to aggregate changes.
(setq evil-want-fine-undo t)