How to map Shift-Enter

Question

I am trying to customize the behaviour of Enter key in Normal mode in Vim. Here is my .vimrc:

nmap <CR> o<Esc> nmap <S-CR> i<CR><Esc> 

I am trying to make Enter simply append a newline after the current line when pressed. However, when the Shift-Enter combination is pressed, I want to break the current line at the cursor.

The latter does not work. Whenever I press Shift-Enter it just appends a line without breaking it at the cursor.

Answer 1

I managed to correct my terminal key-code for Shift+Enter by sending the key-code Vim apparently expects. Depending on your terminal, (Adding Ctrl+Enter as a bonus!)

iTerm2

For a single Profile open Preferences → Profiles → Keys → [+] (Add)
For all profiles open Preferences → Keys → [+] (Add)

• Keyboard shortcut: (Hit Shift+Enter)
• Action: Send Escape Sequence

• Esc+ [13;2u

  Repeat for Ctrl+Enter, with sequence: [13;5u

urxvt, append to your .Xresources file:

URxvt.keysym.S-Return:     \033[13;2u URxvt.keysym.C-Return:     \033[13;5u 

Alacritty, under key_bindings, add following to your ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.yml:

- { key: Return,   mods: Shift,   chars: "\x1b[13;2u" } - { key: Return,   mods: Control, chars: "\x1b[13;5u" } 

Kitty, in ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf:

map shift+enter send_text all \x1b[13;2u map ctrl+enter send_text all \x1b[13;5u 

Answer 2

Due to the way that the keyboard input is handled internally, this unfortunately isn't generally possible today in the terminal version of Vim (<S-CR> should work in GVIM on all platforms, and in the Windows console Vim). This is a known pain point, and the subject of various discussions on vim_dev and the #vim IRC channel.

Some people (foremost Paul LeoNerd Evans) want to fix that (even for console Vim in terminals that support this), and have floated various proposals, cp. http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/browse_thread/thread/626e83fa4588b32a/bfbcb22f37a8a1f8

But as of today, no patches or volunteers have yet come forward, though many have expressed a desire to have this in a future Vim 8 major release.

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Note on mapping <CR>:

If you map <CR> in normal mode, it'll interfere with selection of history items in the command-line window and with jumping to error under cursor in quickfix/location list windows! (Unless you add the following:)

:autocmd CmdwinEnter * nnoremap <CR> <CR> :autocmd BufReadPost quickfix nnoremap <CR> <CR> 

Note on :nmap:

You should use :noremap; it makes the mapping immune to remapping and recursion.