`:vim.send-key` command not working for some keys?

[kenny-evitt]

I'm trying to answer the following Stack Overflow question:

key bindings - Bind multiple actions to one key in lighttable - Stack Overflow

It seems like I should be able to add the following to my user.keymap file to implement this:

[:editor "esc" :auto-complete.remove (:vim.send-key "<Esc>")]

But it doesn't work.

Trying to isolate what's going on, I added the following to my user.keymap file instead:

[:editor "capslock" (:vim.send-key "<Esc>")]

But it doesn't work. Nor does ... (:vim.send-key "Esc").

But other argument values, like "$" or "0" do work. What's up with Escape?

[cldwalker]

:vim.send-key has a different effect for me - all of the keys trigger normal mode keys regardless of whether I'm in insert or normal mode. For example, [:editor "esc" (:vim.send-key "j") (:vim.send-key "j")], moves my cursor down 2 lines. What do you see? Given that send-key just calls handleKey, it's probably worth trying handleKey in a non LT context and asking on the codemirror mailing list if you want handleKey to trigger insert key behavior

[cldwalker]

Closing as I haven't heard back. Feel free to reopen if you have investigated this more

[kenny-evitt]

The post "Changing a Vim editor to normal mode" on the CodeMirror Google Groups group is really really relevant ( :smile: ):

Matt Mower:

Given a reference to a CodeMirror instance using Vim-mode, can anyone tell me how to set it to normal mode?

The best I could come up with from looking at the code was to use handleKey(cm,"<Esc>") to emulate the user pressing Escape. If the editor is in normal mode sending handleKey(cm,"A") does correctly put it in append-at-end-of-line-mode. But neither sending <Esc> (or C-[ or <C-c> cribbed from vim.js) seems to work although my naive reading of the code for handleKey suggests that it should.

What I am trying to do is create a plugin for LightTable that returns any Vim editors to normal mode when the application loses focus. Using LT I am able to get a reference to the CodeMirror instance in any editor tab and send it messages.

Yunchi Luo:

There is no method in the API to do so. You could emulate a browser event on code mirror's hidden input field for the ESC key. Just google to see how to emulate a browser event.

Otherwise, you could send a patch to expose exitInsertMode() on vimApi so you can call CodeMirror.Vim.exitInsertMode(cm). It seems like a harmless enough change.

Chris Granger:

@mightguava, seems like we should be able to do this through handlekey, any idea why we can't?

Yunchi Luo:

You can't, handleKey only handles keys in normal mode and visual mode, not insert mode, not to mention that it's marked as a testing hook and should not be used externally.

Matt Mower:

Thanks Yunchi.

To get my plugin working asap I went the event route and, modulo a lot of fiddling to figure out how to JS stuff without jQuery, that works just fine.

[kenny-evitt]

Please un-assign me.