Disable the ':' character in Vim

Question

In my ~/.vimrc I have mapped ; to : so I don't have to press shift every time I want to enter a command and so I avoid typos like :W. I have mapped it using nnoremap ; :. My muscle memory is so strong however, is that I find myself frequently pressing : when I dont need to and I still get typos like :W.

How can I disable the : character completely and just use ; in normal mode?

@KeithThompson: What is considered "harmless" and would doing that have any serious side effects? Which remapping command would I use? — Zameer Manji, Oct 02 '11 at 17:17
PS. just thought of this: apparently you don't ever use `;` and `,` much? These are really underrated commands in vim! — sehe, Oct 02 '11 at 19:11

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 02 '11 at 18:34

9

nnoremap ; :
nnoremap : <nop>

would be considered fairly harmless.

_{I don't need to point out that using this kind of setup will drive anyone trying to use your box nuts, and will render yourself crippled when at a random other UNIX console :)?...}

answered Oct 02 '11 at 18:34

sehe

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I'm not going to do it permanently, but I want to re-wire my muscle memory when using my vim setup. – Zameer Manji Oct 02 '11 at 19:36
Good strategy. It is probably how i would force myself to do it. Meanwhile `map `, `map ` etc... [were mentioned yesterday on this site](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7614546/vim-cursorline-color-change-in-insert-mode) – sehe Oct 02 '11 at 19:45
1

Instead of ``-ing the `:` key, one can just swap the `:` and `;` commands, `:nnoremap : ;`, `:nnoremap ; :`, so that semantics of useful `;` command would not be lost. – ib. Oct 03 '11 at 14:50
@ib: +1 Although, one would argue that `` is the more harmless (albeit slightly less useful) option – sehe Oct 03 '11 at 14:58
@sehe: The only "harm" the `;` command could cause is changing position of the cursor inside the current line. – ib. Oct 03 '11 at 15:21
@ib: I know. I was joking ... You got the +1 up front :) – sehe Oct 03 '11 at 15:24
One should note that this does break a thing or two. If you have nmap like u :GundoToggle, they will stop working. – Zameer Manji Oct 03 '11 at 19:27
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@ZameerManji: nope, that is a broken mapping. If it needs the original behaviour it should have been using `nnoremap` anyway. Also, @all: these comments really should go with the question. _I, in no way, do endorse this mapping. I'm just answering questions here_ So..... if you can all please move you skeptic comments right with next to ... you guessed it: mine :) Thank you very much – sehe Oct 03 '11 at 20:50
@sehe: Absolutely agree with your last comment! :-) – ib. Oct 04 '11 at 02:42

Disable the ':' character in Vim

1 Answers1