this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
5 points (69.2% liked)

Neovim

2161 readers
3 users here now

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
erlingur@programming.dev
howarddo@programming.dev
kahnclusions@programming.dev
lung@lemmy.world
5
Why use hjkl instead of jkl;? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by Debuholden@programming.dev to c/neovim@programming.dev
7 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello, I was trying to configure i3 to match the functionality of vim (i3 uses jkl; because h is mapped to horizontal split), but when I was doing it I was wondering what the reason is behind every vim or vim-like editor using hjkl. It's rather inefficient to have to move your index finger to the h key every time you want to move left. I know that the creator of vi had his hjkl keys mapped to arrow keys, but why hasn't this changed. Is it a historical thing, or is there an actual logical reason.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

I don't really think it's much of a problem that h isn't on a touch typing key because you don't need to press h very often. I probably use : way more than h. (: requiring shift isn't ideal though, although that's another can of worms)