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First of all. This is not another "how do I exit vim?" shitpost.
I've been using (neo)vim for about two years and I started to notice, that I,m basically unable to use non-vim editors. I do not code a lot, but I write a lot of markown. I'd like to use dedicated tools for this, but their vim emulators are so bad. So I'm now stuck with my customized neovim, devoid of any hope of abandoning this strange addiction.
Any help or advice?
Why would you wanna quit if vim works for you?
Plus vim can be an amazing markdown editor with a few dedicated plugins.
Yes, it is amazing, but some things ( like md tables or writing katex eqations) are handled rough. And I still sometimes need to use something other than vim and then life gets hard.
That's why for tables and katex equations I used plugins to help me with then to not be rough.
As for other stuff than vim, minimize the nees for them if it really gets hard.
Also, some tools have plugins to provide vim controls for them.
I know at least and use these:
There are probably more...
What plugins can you recommend?
I think the only markdown plugin I've used was for table alignment.
Mkdnflow is the one that I used to use and it does so many things amazingly for writting markdown easier
You can exit vim but you can never quit
Learn emacs
No joke, Emacs has the ability to render in line markdown, essentially the current line is just text, while the rest of the doc is rendered as markdown titles, links, lists, etc. It's my favourite way of editing markdown but I've never found another editor that does markdown like that. Everything else has text and rendered markdown side by side as separate panes, which I personally hate.
Edit: I stand corrected. Neovim has it too: https://github.com/MeanderingProgrammer/render-markdown.nvim
Sounds like what Obsidian and Logseq do? Awesome!
Marktext is another. Pretty lightweight and more permissive license than Obsidian.
No joke, Emacs has the ability to render in line markdown, essentially the current line is just text, while the rest of the doc is rendered as markdown titles, links, lists, etc.
This sounds amazing. I've been using markdown-mode for ages now though, and I've never come across this feature.
How do you enable this?
I have it in my config, will link to a specific commit in case anything changes. Look for the heading called MARKDOWN and I'd recommend grabbing all 3 subsections (MARKDOWN, Markdown Headings, Markdown Concealing). The main part is the last one iirc. Link: https://gitlab.com/theshatterstone/dotfiles/-/blob/6f00007eac475946e11fa3278ffbf526400b7e10/.config/emacs/config.org
Edit: Links from the Table of Contents don't work in Gitlab, unfortunately, so you'll have to scroll to it yourself.
Why do you want stop using Vim in the first place? That would be a good information to have, to give help. What dedicated tools do you mean? What do they offer that you miss in Vim? If you just hate Vim and want stop using it no matter what, the only solution is to uninstall it, to not fall into those habits of using it everywhere. Over time you should get used to those other editors and tools.
Accept your fate. VIM is love. VIM is life.
Switch to GUI editors with Word-like navigation. You will struggle but eventually your vim habits will fade away and then you will be able to use any editor with slightly various levels of performance.
The trick is do the opposite, namely bring vim everywhere, e.g using Tridactyl you can bring some behaviors to the browser and, in this very textarea from lemmy, if I press Ctrl+i I get gvim, when I exit it, the content is back in the textarea and I can reply. Vim everywhere.
Build a small EMP device. Figure out how to trigger it from terminal. Delete the key bindings for vim. Map them to the trigger you have for the EMP.
… good luck..?
The real question is how to make everything a modal editor.
Use doom emacs
You could consider markdown extensions that helps you write and visualize!
Like this one: https://github.com/MeanderingProgrammer/render-markdown.nvim
Get a thinkpad or a keyboard with a trackpoint. Your life gets a little bit better.
Do you just need to write markdown? Plenty of text editors have a vim mode. Not sure if there's any lightweight ones that do the markdown preview alongside a vim mode; I know IntelliJ-based IDEs have a vim mode and can preview markdown, but that's not exactly a lightweight solution, and only the community edition is open source.
But also what exactly is it you're looking for that Vim can't do? I use Vim for writing pretty much everything. I use Vim for markdown and it works fine. Markdown is already pretty readable as a text file so I don't feel the need for a previewer or anything like a rich text editor (but also there are plenty of markdown editors out there if you just want to edit markdown in a RTE).
Make a plugin to a non-vim editor that properly emulates the vim experience, with the non-vim GUI.
Or, if that doesn't work well enough, fork them.
Failing that, you could just accept your fate. I love my neovim install.
Some IDE's have a VIM mode.
This is what I do. The IDEA tools (InteliJ, PyCharm, etc.) have pretty good vim support.
How about obsidian.md? It's based on markdown, so edit mode has lots of keybindings, and there are all sorts of javascript plugins to add functionality.
Trying using Nano for absolutely EVERYTHING for a few weeks. That'll help.
Personally, the only thing that would help me for is if I wanted to kill myself
Nano works just fine for me
I have no issues with it. It's Kryptonite to the nonsensical world of VI(m) users though.
I don't know understand why you need markdown, but if you are so used to vim motions why not switch to latex instead. You wouldn't have to worry about katex support as well. This is an advice solely based on your need for katex support without understanding your needs.
The answer is of course another editor: doomemacs
Take vim with you to something with a lot more features!
I use vscode with vim plugin/key bindings lol
Switch to helix
Just switch to VSCode or something similar, it has enough features and shortcuts that will quickly make you like at least 80% as productive as you were in Vim. It even has a Vim mode so you can wean yourself off of it more easily.
Honestly never got the appeal of Vim, you need to spend so much time learning and configuring it only to squeeze out a little bit of extra productivity out of it when compared to a "normal" editor/IDE. I don't see why it's so important to be able to edit and write code as quickly as possible since most of the time you're going to be debugging or looking at the code or reading docs.
EDIT: Just noticed you said you don't code a lot. I think most of what I said still applies, I imagine you don't spend 99% of the time in the editor typing away.
I haven't measured it, but I can tell I'm noticably slower on standard editors than Vim.
I used to use Sublime for notes and then VSCode and those types of text editors work just fine for non code stuff imo. VSCode even has syntax highlighting for Markdown so could be a plus for OP.
To your "never got the appeal".
Ngl for me using vim is the only option. If something needs to be done using a mouse, it's just not going to be done. I can't aim properly due to problems with my arms, and it itches something in my brain everytime I try, it makes me literally furious and enraged.
I tried using zed, but quickly found out that I can only control the text field with motions, nothing else.
If I try using mouse, speed of anything I do gets multiplied by 0.1.
Thanks to vim, I'm able to work with loads of text at all.
Simple as that.
Find breaker box pull down big switch
Right, so you want eMacs evil mode with some choice vim plugins. Excellent vim emulation. The terminal interface is pretty good, and the GUI version has some excellent markdown plugins that give you a live preview. Get started with doom-emacs as it’s very pro vim and modernised out of the box. Then once you’ve got into eMacs you’ll not have any issues with free time ever again, as everything you could possibly want to do you’ll be doomed to finding out how to do in eMacs.
I alternate between helix and vim depending on the task, and their key bindings are kind of opposite from each other in a lot of ways. I've found that switching back and forth has kept me on my toes a bit and I don't feel as locked in to one editor as I did with vim before trying helix.
So I’m now stuck with my customized neovim, devoid of any hope of abandoning this strange addiction.
I would also try getting used to the defaults or a minimal config, which is also a good way to feel at home in the editor regardless of the system