Vim users, where do you rest your right hand?

Question

Longtime vim users, do you keep your fingers onjkl; or hjkl in normal mode?

Standard touch typing teaches us the home position for the right hand has the index finger on the j key, so your fingers are on jkl;.

But standard vim motion keys are hjkl.

I'm getting back into vim after 10+ years ^{(omg, I got old when I wasn't paying attention)} and find myself gravitating towards hjkl ... but that makes it harder to type upper-right letters, braces, etc. I'd like to train myself to use the most efficient/pragmatic method now instead of having to re-train later.

Longtime, hardcore vim users, what's the best practice?

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Note:

1. Bigger overlap with How do touch typists navigate in vi?
2. I think this passes the "subjective" test because it's about deliberately cultivating an unconscious best-practice and not simply about people's preference

Solution 1

I think that jkl; is actually the more appropriate usage for vi. For one, h and l really don't matter that much. w, e, and b are significantly more useful for horizontal navigation. As a bonus, ; is easy to get at if the language requires it. Having a weaker finger on k hurts, and you don't need your strongest finger on the h, when it should be on the j which is probably the most used of the four.

Solution 2

Intro

Neither of the previous 2 solutions was 100% satisfactory. I propose a 3rd way, one that combines the best of both worlds

My Recomendation: "down-up-left-right"

Keep up/down where they are, then make 3rd & 4th fingers left & right

Then, to avoid overwriting base Vim features: Toss whatever used to be on ; to the now-empty h button

As a cute bonus, the "l" key now stands for "left" ;)

noremap l h
noremap ; l
noremap h ;

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The previous "runners-up", who both use "left-down-up-right" layout

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Choice 1: "hjkl"

@alternative's recommendation. Keybinds stay default (hjkl), right hand stays on home row (jkl;)

• pros:
  • j (down) and k (up) stay on your primary 2 fingers, where they deserve
• cons:
  • You have to reach over for h (left). Even if this isn't as used as w,e,b, it's still a bloody arrow button and it would be nice to have on home row
  • Basically: All 4 fingers aren't naturally resting on arrow buttons. This confuses my hand
    
    
    

Choice 2: "jkl;"

Slide those 4 binds over 1 so they sit on the home row:

noremap ; l
noremap l k
noremap k j
noremap j h

• pros:
  • No finger confusion; all the arrows are under the fingers naturally
• cons:
  • As @alternative said, up/down being on the 2nd and 3rd finger is very "non-optimal"
  • Similarly, the strongest finger being on left is also a waste

Solution 3

I keep my hands on the home row, in the normal touch-typist manner. Rarely do I use the h key for movement, as moving one space to the left is not usually an efficient way to move (and does not really fit the essence of Vim).

Solution 4

I understand, that hjkl is used for historic reasons (i.e. Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys) and it is not based on any ergonomic rationale.

I personally prefer to follow the approach recommended by i3 window manager which as explained in the FAQ on Why does the default config use jkl; instead of hjkl? is an ergonomic choice.

i3 uses jkl; because these keys make up the "home row" underneath your right hand when touch typing.

Check this on vim remapping the hjkl to jkl;

Solution 5

While I understand Vim's philosophy of having all the movement available in the home row, I found hjkl to be counter intuitive. A much more saner map I thought would be a wasd-like setup with ijkl

    nnoremap j h
    nnoremap k j
    nnoremap i k

I found this to be very easy to navigate with very natrually.

j:left
i:up
k:down
l:right

For toggling in/out of insert/normal mode, I personally use Alt-e since I almost always use Gvim and not have to worry that some terminals have issues with Alt.

    nnoremap <A-e> i
    inoremap <A-e> <esc>l

View more solutions

Comments

[Rafał Cieślak]

Thanks. As for your recommendation, the only thing that doesn't work so far is switching between splits with Ctrl + W + <direction>.

[rlms]

That sounds suspiciously like emacs!

[Mikhail Kalashnikov]

Oh, crap. I am a vim user for a few years and I always were using hjkl for the arrows. Even though I understand that your suggested way is more efficient, I doubt I'll ever have enough courage to switch to it.

[ahjashish]

Oh god, what is this rabbit hole I have started down...

[xpmatteo]

Add to this years and years of Nethack !!!

[Nicolas NZ]

this is so coherent!, today i was thinking about this and was used to hjkl, time to become jkl i gess