How to fix the backspace keep in vim on OS X

This isn't really a desktop hint, but it's not applicable to the command line outside of OS X either. What am I to do? I didn't have a coin handy, so instead I whipped up a perl program to choose for me. (Not really, just my dry sense of humor leaking into my prose again).

I've always experienced something frustrating when I'm on my Mac. I ssh into a Linux box, and try to use vim. The backspace key (oddly labelled "delete", but it really is backspace) behaves like the delete key. I knew there was probably a really easy way to fix it, but never took the time to figure out exactly what that "fix" was . . . until tonight

I did a quick google on some terms and happened across this very helpful article. The article itself is somewhat long-winded, and covers a number of other topics that didn't interest me, so I'll boil down the exact fix below . . .

Find your vimrc file (mine was in /etc on RH ES 3), and open it up for editing. Drop down to the bottom of the file and add these three lines:

set backspace=indent,eol,start
" note that the following rval is made by hitting ctrl-v and then backspace...
" this remaps backspace to actualy BACKSPACE - not delete.
set t_kb=ctrl-vBACKSPACE
fixdel

Those three simple lines made all the difference in the world.

UPDATE: I just discovered that these settings do not apply if you are running the 'vimtutor' app. Not a big deal, but enough to drive me crazy. My solution was to manually make a copy of the tutor file in /usr/share/vim/vim62/tutor/ and just run 'vim tutor'.

Posted under the influence of [[Arab Strap :: Leave the Day Free]]