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crnz

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vim - not allowing visual block/line selection. how to turn on?

I'm working on a server where I am not the admin, and it has vim 6.3.82 on it.  When I try to select using V or ^v, it simply beeps at me.  I've looked high or low for instructions on how to enable visual mode, and I just can't seem to cook up the right search phrase.

Help!
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crnz

ASKER

I checked and I run VT100 on both servers. vim v5.6 does it (visual mode), v6.3 does not.  So how do I turn it on?
try another teminal like
TERM=linux vim
try Ecs v instead of ^v
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Vim can be built to support visual mode or not support it. Perhaps on that server it's the latter. What's the distro?
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ASKER

centos

I requested (and got) and install of the vim-enhanced package, but it didn't help.
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ravenpl
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No offence ravenpl, but I'm not considering other fallback options yet (including the old Wordstar faves like ^kc ^kv ^kb) until I am forced to.  I'm looking to get V and ^v working like I know they must do - somehow.
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ASKER

ravenpl, I owe you an apology.  Just tried ESC v and I entered visual mode just fine.  Tried ESC V and my fave - visual line mode was all go.

Does this mean I need to change key mappings somewhere?

(You might forgive an old hacker who doesn't like change...  I'm already swapping between windows and linux, I am trying to avoid having to remember new key sequences on different linux servers too!  :)


> Does this mean I need to change key mappings somewhere?
I guess so. It's the telnet/ssh/whatever client has to support smarter terminal than ancient vt100. What client do You use?
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Gottit

It turns out V and v are unmapped in vi (goodness knows why they were mapped on the versions I have used - but I'm happy not to know this)

I just mapped them in vi

:map! V ^[V
:map! v ^[v

I put these in .vimrc and it works fine.

Thanks - I'm a happy chappie again

(for those finding this looking for answers, :map! maps edit mode keys while :map maps command mode keys.  ^[ stands for ESC)

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ASKER

woops - that's the othe way 'round with :map and :map!.  you'll figure it out. :)