How to exit the registers list with q?

Question

When using the :oldfiles command, I can easily exit the list with q.

When I use the :registers command, it says "Press ENTER or type command to continue". But I would like to exit the list with q, without entering into macro recording which is annoying. I don't like pressing enter.

Is there a native Vim way to exit the register list with q, just like the :oldfiles "pager" does? It would be nice to have a bit of consistency.

EDIT

To display registers, I actually do :reg "0123456789, which is a short output, so that's why Vim's "more-prompt pager" is not used (cf. :h more-prompt). I have a lot of :oldfiles, so that's why Vim's "more-prompt pager" is used in this case.

I want to be able to always hit q regardless of whether the output is short. Maybe there is a way to always force the "more-prompt pager"? Or to customize mappings for output windows? Worst case scenario I could pipe the output in a scratch buffer that has a custom q mapping, if there is no simpler solution.

Answer 1

The difference is whether the whole list fits in the screen or not. If your screen is tall enough, the output of :registers will fit in the screen, and you will see the message “Press ENTER or type command to continue”. If the output of :oldfiles is long enough, you will need to scroll and will instead see the message “-- More --”.

Once you scroll to the end of the :oldfiles output, you will see the same behavior as with :registers, so Vim is being consistent.

In the output of :registers (or any time “Press ENTER or type command to continue” is shown), pressing b, u, k, or ↑ will change the message to “-- More --” and you will be able to use q to quit the list. It’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but it does help to explain to explain the behavior.

Answer 2

I can press q at Press ENTER or type command to continue to quit.

If that does not work for you, look at :help press-return - you can also use <space> to continue.

   Press ENTER or type command to continue

This message is given when there is something on the screen for you to read,
and the screen is about to be redrawn:
[..]

-> Press <Enter> or <Space> to redraw the screen and continue, without that
   key being used otherwise.

Answer 3

I gave in to the dark side and used some hacky Vimscript:

map <silent> '' :call DisplayRegisters()<cr>

function! DisplayRegisters()
  redir => output
  silent exe 'reg "0123456789'
  redir END
  new
  silent file [Registers]
  setlocal nonumber norelativenumber
  setlocal buftype=nofile bufhidden=wipe noswapfile nobuflisted nomodified
  silent put =output
  silent normal gg"_d2j
  exe 'resize ' . line('$')
  map <silent> <buffer> q :q<cr>
  map <silent> <buffer> <esc> q
endfunction

This allows me to see a short list of registers by typing '', and close it by typing q, just like I wanted.