Making Cursor Keys Work in vi Text-input Mode

Here is my exrc file, which I customized for a VT100 terminal. It is set up for C and nroff -me macros. [Strings like ^[OD are set by the cursor keys () on VT100-type terminals. Make the ^[ by typing [CTRL-v] [ESC]. Many vi versions make this easier; they understand map #1 () to mean "map function key F1."-JP ]

 troff 

set ai redraw sm wm=1 set tabstop=4 set shiftwidth=4 map! {} {^M}^[O^I Great for auto indenting {
}
pairs map! ^[OD ^[ha Cursor left while inputting map! ^[OA ^[ka Cursor up while inputting map! ^[OB ^[ja Cursor down while inputting map! ^[OC ^[la Cursor right while inputting map ^[OP A Mapped F1 to append to end of line map! ^[OP ^[A Text-input mode of the above map ^[OQ 0i Mapped F2 to insert before line map! ^[OQ ^[0i Text-input mode of the above map! `` \*(lq troff left quote map! '' \*(rq troff right quote

I can use the cursor keys while inputting text. This is handy because I can back up and add text without pressing ESC. [Though you may not be able to () undo your previous change with the u command. -JP ]

Also, I have defined [F1] to append at the end of the line. This is useful because it doesn't matter what mode you are in, it always puts you in text-input mode.

At one time, I mapped the entire numeric keypad to emulate the EDT editor.

- BB in net.unix on Usenet, 9 October 1986