What does <ctrl-h> do?

Question

I was just exploring the control key in vim (to make myself more familiar with vim overall) and I don't quite get what exactly happens when I press <ctrl-h>.

So when I used <ctrl-h> in my (modded) vim, it just goes one to the left, but, when I'm at the first column of a line, it will go to the previous line instead. Now this functionality would be immensely useful in scripting.

However when I use an unmodded vim (with vim -u NONE), it basically is , i.e. it doesn't do the line changing thing.

:help ctrl-h doesn't help me at all, as it talks about netrw, which is nice to know, but I'm interested in the normal mode shortcut.

So my questions are:

1. What settings changed the <ctrl-h> key in my modded vim?
2. Is there something that does the opposite of <ctrl-h>, i.e. it goes to the right and if it's in the last column, it skips to the next line (if there is one)

Answer 1

It's usually interpreted as a back space.

:help ctrl-h doesn't help me at all, as it talks about netrw,

Try :h CTRL-h, yes case makes a difference for some reason.

Is there something that does the opposite of , i.e. it goes to the right and if it's in the last column, it skips to the next line (if there is one)

Yes, try <Space> for scripting, or Space in normal mode.