How to insert line in normal mode and stay at the same position

Question

I tried to bind the following to insert a line after the line I'm currently on. Here it is:

nnoremap <CR> o<ESC>k

But this works weird. After inserting a new line cursor is at the beginning of the line I was on.

Is there a way to insert a new line in normal mode and stay at the same position?

Answer 1

That's odd, I was quite sure to have already answered this question twice. It may have been on SO...

Anyway. Use append(). It won't move the cursor or alter more registers than necessary.

" This also supports counts. Try 3<cr>
:nnoremap <buffer> <cr> :<C-U>call append('.', repeat([''],v:count1))<cr>

Answer 2

Almost every time you move your cursor, the previous location is added to "the jumplist". Using <C-o> will move you back to the previous location in the jump list. From :h CTRL-o

                            *CTRL-O*
CTRL-O          Go to [count] Older cursor position in jump list
            (not a motion command).
            {not in Vi}
            {not available without the |+jumplist| feature}

However, binding to

nnoremap <CR> o<ESC><C-o>

Does not work because o is one of the movements that doesn't add the previous location. To manually add the current location, type m`. From :h m`

                        *m'* *m`*
m'  or  m`      Set the previous context mark.  This can be jumped to
            with the "''" or "``" command (does not move the
            cursor, this is not a motion command).

So the end mapping would be

nnoremap <CR> m`o<ESC><C-o>

Actually, we can make this mapping even better! We can make it accept a count.

nnoremap <expr> <cr> "m`".v:count1."o\<esc>\<C-o>"