I can't switch to | cursor in insert mode

Question

I want to change cursors to a | character in insert mode, and then back to a block in normal mode. I am using urxvt as my terminal, and neovim.

To switch cursors in my terminal, I run the following to get a blinking I-beam

echo -e "\033[5 q"

and then to go to a solid block:

echo e "\033[1 q"

I tried this in my vimrc:

let &t_SI = "\033[1 q"
let &t_SR = "\033[5 q"
let &t_EI = "\033[5 q"

but it didn't work. Nothing different from normal happens when I enter and exit insert mode.

I also tried this in my vimrc:

if has("autocmd")
  au InsertEnter * silent execute "!print -n -- '\033[1 q'"
  au InsertLeave * silent execute "!print -n -- '\033[3 q'"
  au VimLeave * silent execute "!print -n -- '\033[5 q'"
endif

When I enter insert mode with this, the editor shifts up one line, and the status bar is shown twice at the bottom. When I exit insert mode, I see the text [3 q below the statusbar. Any ideas? Thanks

Some links that I tried:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=177281 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=155802

Answer 1

Neovim does not use vimrc it uses $XDG_CONFIG_PATH/nvim/init.vim. Yet, there is more to it. In Vim you should use \<esc> to represent the escape key. I can change the cursor on Arch Linux on urxvt with the following in my vimrc:

let &t_SI = "\<esc>[5 q"
let &t_SR = "\<esc>[5 q"
let &t_EI = "\<esc>[2 q"

I also tried the autocmd technique and it works. Instead of the previous three lines I do:

au InsertEnter * silent execute "!echo -en \<esc>[5 q"
au InsertLeave * silent execute "!echo -en \<esc>[2 q"

And the cursor changes to a bar (|) in insert mode. In urxvt:

• 1 is the blinky block cursor
• 2 is the default (non-blinky) block cursor
• 3 is blinky underscore
• 4 fixed underscore
• 5 pipe bar (blinking)
• 6 fixed pipe bar

---

In neovim things work differently. Although :help termcap-cursor-shape is the same as in Vim it appears to ignore t_SI, t_SR and t_EI. As Caleb Eby found out the NVIM_TUI_ENABLE_CURSOR_SHAPE variable controls neovim's cursor shape instead.

You can therefore add:

let $NVIM_TUI_ENABLE_CURSOR_SHAPE = 1

To your ~/.config/nvim/init.vim and the cursor will work as if the termcap variables were set as:

let &t_SI = "\<esc>[5 q"
let &t_SR = "\<esc>[3 q"
let &t_EI = "\<esc>[2 q"

(But you cannot change the values, as far as I meddled with this)

Reference:

• :h termcap-cursor-shape
• Changing cursor in Vim in iTerm