Vim and azerty keyboards

Question

I recently started learning Vim and before I go deeper I have a question I need answered.

Using a AZERTY keyboard, should I remap the keys for the commands and shortcuts to fit the position of the keys of a QWERTY keyboard?

I am asking this because obviously quite a lot of thinking must have being put creating thoses commands, and when I see how far the '$' is on a AZERTY keyboard compared to the QWERTY one for example I can't help but think it might feel wrong at some point.

Here is the AZERTY layout: http://www.nathael.org/Data/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.svg

I don't even know if it will be possible to remap the way I would need, basically only remapping for command input, so I need so opinions from the 'pros' and/or azerty users.

Answer 1

My current remapping for AZERTY in ~/.vimrc:

" 1. Move to the end of the line
noremap m $
" 2. Search backward for the word under the cursor
noremap µ #
" 3. Navigate to the help tag under the cursor
noremap ' <C-]>

Further explanations:

1. I don't use marks, so decided to remap m in normal mode. This is practical since the m key is just after the movement keys hjkl on the AZERTY keyboard.
2. µ is on the same key as * which searches forward for the word under the cursor. This is a logical choice, similar to n and N for forward and backward searches.
3. The key ' is actually the result of pressing CTRL-ù in the terminal. This key is next to m on the keyboard. Its use for tag navigation was inspired by two questions here how do i type CTRL ] on a QUERTZ keyboard and on vi.stackexchange tag navigation using CTRL ] does not work.

In addition, I mapped caps lock to escape at a system level (how to do it in debian). I'm not a really experienced vim user so these mappings are likely to change.

Answer 2

I also use an azerty keyboard, and I didn't remap the keys in order to fit the qwerty keyboard.

But I take profit of the very easy accessibility of some unused chars, like é, è, à, ç (all the accentuated characters) and have some maps like this:

noremap à @
noremap ç @@
noremap § \

(The last one is so useful that I remapped it outside of Vim, on my linux system-wide keyboard configuration)

But I think that remapping all keys to fit the qwerty keyboard is more a source of confusion, than a good solution.

Answer 3

I do not know any plugins, or reference for what you ask but I can share what I personally use.

With this you can use the top row symbols of your keyboards to use the numbers without shift ! Very useful and decreases the risk of RSI.

I think the only "useful" key you lose is ' (to go to the line of a bookmark) but I think ` is more useful (remapped to ù) because it goes not just to the line of the bookmark but also the specific character of that line that is bookmarked

  map à 0
  map & 1
  map é 2
  map " 3
  map ' 4
  map ( 5
  map - 6
  map è 7
  map _ 8
  map ç 9

  nmap ù `