Vimamsa

Vi/Vim -inspired experimental GUI-oriented text editor written with Ruby and GTK.

Requirements

On Ubuntu (22.04):

sudo apt install ruby-dev build-essential
sudo gem install vimamsa

Run:

vimamsa

Install from sources:

git clone https://github.com/SamiSieranoja/vimamsa.git
cd vimamsa
gem build vimamsa.gemspec 
sudo gem install --local vimamsa-0.1.*.gem

Older version for GTK3:

sudo gem install vimamsa -v 0.1.10

vimamsa

Install packages for optional features:

sudo apt install ack-grep clang-format

For customization, edit ~/.vimamsa/custom.rb

Key bindings are very much like in VIm. For details, see menu item "Help -> Show key bindings" and file lib/vimamsa/key_bindings_vimlike.rb

Keys that work somewhat similarly as in Vim:

In Command mode:

j k l h w b p P G f F ; 0 $ v i o  J * / a A I u ctrl-r x 
zz dd dw gg <linenum>G r<char>

In Visual mode:

d y gU gu

Keys that work differently to Vim are documented in the tables below

Syntax:

ctrl! means press and immediate release of ctrl key. Triggered by key up event when no other keys were pressed between key down and key up events.
ctrl-x means press and hold ctrl key, press x

Command mode keys
Key	Action
ctrl!	switch between command and insert modes
z	enter into BROWSE mode
shift!	save file
s	Easy jump (Similar to Vim EasyMotion https://github.com/easymotion/vim-easymotion )
tab	switch betwen current and previous buffer/file
enter	(when cursor on link) open url in browser
enter	(when cursor on /path/to/file.txt:linenum ) open file in editor, jump to linenum
,a	Search for string using ack
,b	Switch buffer (jump to other open file)
,g	search for input string inside current buffer
,f	File finder
space c	insert character "c"

Insert mode keys (similar to bash or emacs)
ctrl! OR esc	Switch to command mode
ctrl-n	Move to next line
ctrl-p	Move to previous line
ctrl-a	Move beginning of line
ctrl-e	Move to end of line
ctrl-b	Move backward one char
ctrl-f	Move forward one char
alt-f	Move forward one word
alt-b	Move backward one word

Browse mode keys
h	jump to previous buffer in history
l	jump to next buffer in history
q	jump to previous edited position
w	jump to next edited position
j OR esc	switch from browse to command mode

Bindings can be customized in ~/.vimamsa/custom.rb For example, to bind ctrl-n to action "create new file":

bindkey 'C ctrl-n',  'create_new_file()'

Cursor sometimes vanishes when dragging or resizing the window. At least some cases are fixed in new GTK4 versions ( >= 4.18, in Ubuntu Ubuntu 25.04). Workaround is to press ctrl key twice.