Vim, Jetbrains or Vscode Vim Mode: A better shortcut to navigate 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.

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

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

🛠 Jetbrains solution

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

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

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My posts are not AI generated, they might be only AI corrected. The first draft is always my creation

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Vim, Jetbrains o modo Vim para Vscode: Mejorar movimiento entre paneles

Author

Written by Helmer Davila