vim Keybindings

[Drew Tomlinson]

Chuck Robey wrote:
> Drew Tomlinson wrote:
>   
>> I'm experiencing an annoying problem with vim on FBSD 8 that I don't
>> have on FBSD 7.  Whenever I start vim, if I press the down arrow as the
>> first key, it deletes the first line of my file and enters insert mode. 
>> All the other keys work fine and even the down arrow works fine after
>> the first press.
>>
>> I've searched for help but haven't turned up anything relevant.  Any
>> ideas on what I can check?
>>     
>
> Hmm.  Don't know if your machine is exactly set up as mine, so 1st, does hitting
> the escape key as the first key fix things?

Yes.

>   And, on a shell, hit control-V (the
> common shell escape key for control keys), then the down arrow, what does it
> print?  

^[[B

> Not sure I would be able to help, but there is often a timing issue on
> special function key decoding (like all of the arrow keys, or the function keys,
> etc) and this may tell what your down key is set for in Vim.  Beyond that, Vim's
> environment is extremely programmable, so one would really have to look
> carefully through all of your environment files, beginning with vim's ~/.vimrc.
>  If you are using any of vim's huge store of extensions, your .vimrc probably
> has statements to include subdirectories (perhaps of your homedir).  Those files
> are also candidates for trouble sources.
>   

This is a default 7.2 install from ports.  In my home directory, I have 
created a .vimrc and tried various items from Google searches, trying to 
remedy this problem.  Currently, it contains:

syntax on
set background=dark
set nocompatible
set esckeys

> Are you having this problem on ttys, or under X11?  Tried both?
>   

I guess on ttys.  Specifically, I'm using SecureCRT from a windows 
machine.  The terminal emulation is set to Xterm.  I'm not sure I ever 
specifically set that but I use this same software from this same 
machine without problems on vim 7.2 on a FBSD 6.2 install and a FBSD 7.3 
install.
> It's most likely *something* dealing with Vim, because it's unreported on
> FreeBSD (I know, I love vim and been using it on FreeBSD-current for years).
> Vim's IRC channel ("vim") is extremely good about helping on problems, like bad
> keymapping, they are just as good as we here on this mailing list are, but they
> obviously concentrate on vim.  Anyways, if you answer these questions on the
> list or channel, folks are far more likely to be able to help you here (or on
> the vim channel).
>   

Thanks for your help.  I'd really like to remove this annoyance.  :)

Cheers,

Drew