Tell me more ×
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

I am trying to bind Ctrl-+ and Ctrl-- in Vim to resize the current window. However, Terminal does not seem to pass anything when I press Ctrl-+. Ctrl-- does work.

I checked in Vim itself using Ctrl-V and in Bash using cat -v. No luck. Disabling the hotkeys for OS X's Spaces is no use, either.

MacVim seems to have the same problem. Is this a reserved hotkey for OS X, perhaps?

share|improve this question
1  
If you open Keyboard Viewer from the Input menu you can enable in System Preferences » Language & Text » Input Sources, you'll notice that pressing Ctrl will prevent Shift from taking hold. This is why on my British keyboard, Ctrl-Minus and Ctrl-Shift-Minus both produce ^_. Unfortunately, switching to a different keyboard layout with + on its own, unmodified key, such as German, doesn't help either. But other applications, such as System Preferences » Keyboard » Keyboard Shortcuts or third party applications such as Butler receive Cmd-+ just fine. – Daniel Beck♦ Dec 28 '10 at 11:57
Daniel: thank you, I had not gotten that far. FWIW, I am using an external non-Apple USB "International" and the MBP's internal US keyboard. Both keyboards give the same results. I would not even mind the "non-shiftiness" if Ctrl-= (a.k.a. Ctrl-+ minus the shift) worked — but even that combination does not get through. – janmoesen Dec 28 '10 at 14:11

1 Answer

up vote 0 down vote accepted

It is not actually a key combination (Ctrl-Minus) you enter, but a UNIX control code -- like what happens when you enter ^D or ^C (caret notation). That's why cat -v displays it as ^_.

There's just no control code associated with Ctrl-Plus or Ctrl-Equals. It just doesn't work like you want: you're actually assigning a command to ASCII character 0x1F.

share|improve this answer
Thank you! I will try and see if I can make Terminal.app pass along some other (as of yet unused) sequence using its keyboard mapping. Too bad I would have to do that for every terminal application I use Vim with, though. – janmoesen Jan 2 '11 at 10:21

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.