Vim, Jetbrains or Vscode Vim Mode: Improve navigation between splits

🤔 Why I wanted to avoid using the default shortcut

I got used to the VIM workflow since 1 year ago. And since I’m a heavy user between panes and the file tree. I wanted to implement a better way to do it. Let’s remember that VIM (or any editor with a mode based on it), brings default shortcuts to accomplish that.

^ + w + ( h or j or k or l) = Move between panels

Windows and Linux users replace the ^ with Ctrl .

But what if we just skip that w ? Since we move between lines with hjkl . Wouldn’t it be easier to add Ctrl or ^ and the direction key to move between panes? I often move between splits in VIM, Neovim, Jetbrains and Vscode. So I wanted to have a unified flow. Here is how I accomplished it.

🛠 Vim & Neovim solution

I put next content in ~/.vimrc or my ~/.config/nvim/init.vim file.

map <C-j> <C-W>j
map <C-k> <C-W>k
map <C-h> <C-W>h
map <C-l> <C-W>l

🛠 Vscode solution

It must be edited in the settings.json file from Vscode. This works if you’re using the Vim package.

"vim.normalModeKeyBindings": [
    {
      "before": ["<C-k>"],
      "commands": ["workbench.action.navigateUp"]
    },
    {
      "before": ["<C-j>"],
      "commands": ["workbench.action.navigateDown"]
    },
    {
      "before": ["<C-h>"],
      "commands": ["workbench.action.navigateLeft"]
    },
    {
      "before": ["<C-l>"],
      "commands": ["workbench.action.navigateRight"]
    }
  ],

🛠 Jetbrains solution

Remember to install Ideavim . This will look any config into your ~/.ideavimrc

:map <C-j> <C-W>j
:map <C-k> <C-W>k
:map <C-h> <C-W>h
:map <C-l> <C-W>l

▶️ Testing it

To make it work, restart any of your editors. Now you should be able to move quickly between panes.