how can i intuitively move cursor in vim?(not by line)

Question

if some lines are too long, it will be forced to be newlined.

for example, normally a long line will looks like this

1 first line
2 this is the long second line of the file
3 third line.

but, if the window of a vim are too narrow, it will looks like this

1 first line
2 this is the long
  second line of the file
3 third line

the problem arise from this.

let's assume the vim cursor are located at before 't' in 'third line'. if i type 'k', cursor will move to before 's' in 'second line of the file'. after that, if i type 'k' again, cursor will move to 'f' in 'first line'!, not 't' in 'this is the long'. what i want is that the cursor move to 't' in 'this is the long', it is more intuitive process for me. how can set my vim to works like this?

Answer 1

In Vim, the gj and gk commands move by line on the screen rather than by line in the file. This sounds like it probably matches your description.

You can modify your keys like this:

:map j gj
:map k gk

Answer 2

No, if some lines are too long and you have set wrap on they will be shown on "two lines", so to say, but there won't be a newline character between them. If you turn off wrap with set nowrap you'll see the effect.

Normally, k and j move you up and down. If you want to navigate wrapped lines use gk or gj, or just as some like it, map it to for example, the cursor keys.

nmap <up> gk
nmap <down> gj

Answer 3

To move in vim in a natural way is possible.

What I did was, and I suggest you, to modify (or create) your "~/.vimrc" and add these two lines:

map <C-Up> g<Up>
map <C-Down> g<Down>

This will map you control-up and control-down to the movements commands (this is coherent with control-right and control-left to move around long lines)

If you add these other two lines, you can use the same command to move in insertmode:

imap <C-Up> <C-[> g<Up> i
imap <C-Down> <C-[> g<Down> i

(VIM is great !)

Greg Ruo