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I've recently started using vim. From previous editors I'm used to delete whole word by pressing ctrl-backspace. After looking at the documentation I found that this was done by pressing ctrl-w in vim. The problem is that after getting used to pressing ctrl-w, I've started closing tabs and chats every time I misspell a word (while writing this question I closed this tab 5 times :P ). So I checked how to map keys in vim and tried this:

:imap <C-BS> <C-w>

Unfortunately it didn't work. After a bit of research I found that the terminal does not distinguish between ctrl-backspace and backspace. I saw some hacks and patches to fix this issue, but I couldn't get them to work on terminator (which is the emulator I want to use).

Is there any way to map ctrl-backspace in vim when using terminator?

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Welcome in Vim hell. – romainl Feb 25 at 13:07
1  
I like the fact that this hell is quite productive and can be improved with patches. – Ingo Karkat Feb 25 at 13:10
BTW, I'm collecting these kind of questions to hopefully be able to make a case that this particular problem is tackled in a Vim 8.0. I really want more and more uniform mapping candidates, too. – Ingo Karkat Feb 25 at 13:13

1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Due to the way that the keyboard input is handled internally, this unfortunately isn't generally possible today. Some key combinations, like Ctrl + non-alphabetic cannot be mapped, and Ctrl + letter vs. Ctrl + Shift + letter cannot be distinguished. (Unless your terminal sends a distinct termcap code for it, which most don't.) In insert or command-line mode, try typing the key combination. If nothing happens / is inserted, you cannot use that key combination. This also applies to <Tab> / <C-I>, <CR> / <C-M> / <Esc> / <C-[> etc. (Only exception is <BS> / <C-H>.) This is a known pain point, and the subject of various discussions on vim_dev and the #vim IRC channel.

Some people (foremost Paul LeoNerd Evans) want to fix that (even for console Vim in terminals that support this), and have floated various proposals, cp. http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/browse_thread/thread/626e83fa4588b32a/bfbcb22f37a8a1f8

But as of today, no patches or volunteers have yet come forward, though many have expressed a desire to have this in a future Vim 8 major release.

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Thanks for the quick answer. I guess I'll just have to get used to using ctrl-w for vim and ctrl-backspace for browsers. – user1026044 Feb 25 at 13:35
The good thing about Ctrl-W is that it also works in Bash etc. – Ingo Karkat Feb 25 at 14:09
Yeah, I know. But you still have to use ctrl-backspace for everything else, and the fact that ctrl-w seems to be standard for closing tabs and windows everywhere else makes it annoying. I'll probably get used to it after a while though. – user1026044 Feb 25 at 14:26

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