Map Esc key in Vim

Question

I'm a beginning Vim user. I hate pressing the Esc key, which is a little far on my T61. In order to return to command mode. How do I map it to F4?

Answer 1

For a single session, you could just enter the following keystrokes exactly:

esc:imapspace<f4>space<esc>enter

The esc key ensures that you're in command mode, colon starts a line command, and the imap maps the F4 key to ESCAPE.

However, if you want this retained for every session, you'll need to put in in your Vim start-up file.

The location of this varies depending on your environment (for my Linux box, it's at $HOME/.gvimrc for gvim, $HOME/.vimrc for vim). You'll need to find it and add the line:

imap <f4> <esc>

One trick you can use is to start a naked Vim session (vim without an argument) then enter

:e $MYVIMRC

which will open up your current start-up file.

Also,

:echo $HOME

should tell you the location of it under Windows.

Answer 2

Another way to exit insert mode is to use Ctrl+C. Not sure whether that helps in your situation though.