In vim, how can I map "save" (:w) to ctrl-s.
I am trying "map" the command, but xterm freezes when I press ctrl-s.
If I give ctrl-v,ctrl-s still I see only a ^, not ^S.
4 Answers
Ctrl+S is a common command to terminals to stop updating, it was a way to slow the output so you could read it on terminals that didn't have a scrollback buffer. First find out if you can configure your xterm to pass Ctrl+S through to the application. Then these map commands will work:
noremap <silent> <C-S> :update<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <C-S> <C-C>:update<CR>
inoremap <silent> <C-S> <C-O>:update<CR>
BTW: if Ctrl+S freezes your terminal, type Ctrl+Q to get it going again.
In linux with VI, you want to press Ctrl-S and have it save your document. This worked for me, put the following three lines in your .vimrc file. This file should be located in your home directory: /home/el/.vimrc If this file doesn't exist you can create it.
:nmap <c-s> :w<CR>
:imap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR>a
The first line says: pressing Ctrl-S within a document will perform a :w <enter> keyboard combination.
The second line says: pressing Ctrl-S within a document while in 'insert' mode will escape to normal mode, perform a :w <enter, then press a to get back into insert mode. Your cursor may move during this event.
You may notice that pressing Ctrl-S performs an 'XOFF' which stops commands from being received (If you are using ssh).
To fix that, place these two commands in your ~/.bash_profile
bind -r '\C-s'
stty -ixon
What that does is turn off the binding of Ctrl-S and gets rid of any XOFF onscreen messages when pressing Ctrl-S. Note, after you make changes to your .bash_profile you have to re-run it with the command 'source .bash_profile' or logout/login.
More Info:
vim
# ~/.vimrc
nnoremap <c-s> :w<CR> # normal mode: save
inoremap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR>l # insert mode: escape to normal and save
vnoremap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR> # visual mode: escape to normal and save
zsh (if you use)
# ~/.zshrc
# enable control-s and control-q
stty start undef
stty stop undef
setopt noflowcontrol
bash (if you use)
# ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc
# enable control-s and control-q
stty -ixon
Mac OSX Terminal + zsh?
In your .zprofile
alias vim="stty stop '' -ixoff; vim"
Why?, What's happening? See Here, but basically for most terminals ctrl+s is already used for something, so this alias vim so that before we run vim we turn off that mapping.
