I like VIM a lot and I wanted to use it's keybindings everywhere. There are many IDE plugins that can emulate this but I wanted more, maybe VIM keybindings in Minecraft? :D or VIM keybindings everywhere without the need to download any plugin.
I noticed that every single editor implements this keys: Home, End, Ctrl+End, Ctrl+Left, Ctrl+Backspace and so on...
I used these keys as a building blocks and I came up with this config for i3wm:
mode "VIM MODE NORMAL" {
bindsym --release h exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers Left"
bindsym --release j exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers Down"
bindsym --release k exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers Up"
bindsym --release l exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers Right"
bindsym --release Shift H exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers Home"
bindsym --release Shift L exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers End"
bindsym --release Shift G exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+End"
bindsym --release g exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+Home"
bindsym --release u exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers --repeat 5 Up"
bindsym --release d exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers --repeat 5 Down"
bindsym --release b exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+Left"
bindsym --release e exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+Right"
bindsym --release Shift O exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers Up End Return"; mode "delault"
bindsym --release o exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers End Return"; mode "default"
bindsym --release Shift A exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers End"; mode "default"
bindsym --release Shift I exec "xdotool key --clearmodifiers Home"; mode "default"
bindsym q mode "default"
bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
bindsym Menu mode "VIM MODE NORMAL"
That code snippet works, but not in the way I want it to. If I don't use --release
the code does not work at all, because of this keys do not repeat, so it is not possible to hold down on J and scroll down.
It seems to be a window focus issue. For some reason when I press keybindings, the window loses focus for some milliseconds and then it becomes focused again. This is most obvious in Firefox's Url Bar. I found this question asked years ago, which suggests adding one second delay until xdotool
is executed, I could use this but second creates a huge input delay.
I have also tried other window managers and the hotkey daemon sxhkb
but everything is exactly same...
I had this same issue, and I realized that you have to tell xdotool to send keyup events for the keys in your keybindings. So for example:
bindsym h exec "xdotool keyup h; xdotool key"
Do that for every binding and I think it will work.