Mapping Esc+key (hold down escape and press another key to perform action)

Question

I mapped my capslock key to escape but sometimes I accidentally press capslock when I meant to press shift.

Can I remap <Esc>+key to send me back to insert mode and insert the proper character?

For example I would like to press <Esc>+9 and be put back into insert mode and insert the ( character (as if I had just pressed <Shift>+9).

Possible?

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this is not possible. See this answer. — Tumbler41, Aug 26, 2016 at 21:59
@Tumbler41 Isn't that about mapping to ctrl rather than <esc>? — DJMcMayhem, Aug 26, 2016 at 22:10
"I mapped my capslock key to escape" -> How did you do this? In Vim or in your operating system? — Martin Tournoij, Aug 26, 2016 at 22:27
@Carpetsmoker I thought that wasn't possible to do that in Vim and doing it in the OS level was the only way. Have I missed something? — statox, Aug 29, 2016 at 7:16
@statox Dunno ... But seems to me that asking to be sure is always a good idea ;-) — Martin Tournoij, Aug 29, 2016 at 7:50

Ingo Karkat · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-29 16:16:03Z

3

<Esc> is not a modifier like Shift. There's no <Esc-9> keycode, only <S-9>.

As you usually press Shift before the other key, you could approach this via a set of sequential mappings:

:inoremap <Esc>9 (
:inoremap <Esc>0 )
...

But that would introduce a noticeable delay when you really just want to leave insert mode.

answered Aug 29, 2016 at 16:16

Ingo Karkat

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I just tried this (in terminal and gVim), and it only works if I release the Escape key before pressing the 9 key. (If I hold down Escape I only get a 9 inserted.) I'm not clear if that's your intention, or if there's a some setting that affects this behaviour?
– Rich
Nov 13, 2017 at 16:27
@Rich That's what I meant by "not a modifier". You have to press them sequentially; there's no setting within Vim.
– Ingo Karkat
Nov 13, 2017 at 19:30
The way you've written the second paragraph made me think that you were saying your mapping would work both if the key presses were pressed sequentially (hence, "not a modifier"), but also if the key-presses overlapped, so long as Escape was pressed first. Thanks for clarifying.
– Rich
Nov 13, 2017 at 20:38

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