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Comment by joelthelion | Hacker News Reader

Why don't people seem to use the F keys? I have mappings for very frequent functions on F1-F5, and it really helps:

    map  <F1> <Esc>:w<CR>|      "Fast save
    imap <F1> <Esc>:w<CR>|      "Fast save
    map  <F2> :make<Up><CR>|    "Fast compile
    map  <F3> :bn<CR>
    map  <S-F3> :bp<CR>
    " Same mapping for gnome-terminal ( see     http://stackoverflow.com/q/12813126/164171 )
    map ^[O1;2R :bp<CR>

    map  <F4> :bd<CR>|          "Close buffer

    map  <F5> :cnext<cr>
    map  <S-F5> :cprev<cr>
    imap  <F5> <Esc>:cnext<cr>
    imap  <S-F5> <Esc>:cprev<cr>

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"Why don't people seem to use the F keys?"

Probably because that doesn't fit well with touch typing. A great thing about vim is that you can do everything as a touch typist, without reaching for the outlying districts of the keyboard (assuming you've remapped the escape key to capslock, or learned to use ^[, or mapped it).

Additionally, on many keyboards (specifically Apple keyboards), you have to hit a modifier key plus the function key. For example, you have to hit Fn + F1 to get F1 because otherwise it's the "Lower LCD Brightness" hotkey. This makes them even less useful.

FYI: there is a setting that flips everything around – F1 to get F1, Fn+F1 to lower the brightness.

But it's also not the default (at least on OSX).

'It's not the default' is a terrible argument in a thread specifically about customising vi to the Nth degree ;)

Not always useful if e.g. you're locked out of the BIOS, the setting constantly auto-resets for no apparent reason, the keyboard is partially broken.

The sad thing is that I've personally experienced all three of these problems. #%^$ whoever decided that the Function keys should be brightness etc by default.

Does Apple not offer Fn Lock? Most keyboards in the last many years seem to be going this way, but it's always easy to switch it off. I certainly press F5 more often than change brightness.

One of my favorite bits for saving my own butt: commit more.

    "Function to commit.
    function! GitCommit ()
      execute 'write'
      let message = input('Enter commit message: ')
      execute '!git add ' . bufname('%') . ' && git commit -m ''' . message . ''';'
    endfunction
    
    imap <F7> <Esc>:call GitCommit()<CR>
    map <F7> <Esc>:call GitCommit()<CR>

OMG, I need to add this to my .vimrc. Thanks :D

Have you tried fugitive (a vim wrapper around git)?

The only F-key I can hit reliably without looking down is F5, which comes from years of browser use & web development, and a slight gap there on my keyboard.

Perhaps it could be learned, but I haven't learned it yet in ~20 years of typing.

I'd guess, for the same reason I use Ctrl-[ instead of the Esc key. F keys put you out of the home row (at least in full size keyboards).

You can remap your Caps Lock key to Esc on pretty much everything: Windows using AutoHotKey, Mac OS using Seil, Unix using xmodmap.

I map a few of them:

    " Filesystem browser
    map <F2> :Explore<CR>

    " Show whitespace
    set listchars=eol:↵,tab:>·,trail:~,extends:>,precedes:<,space:␣
    map <F4> :set list!<CR>

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