About a month ago I found out that you could configure inputs to work similar to that of Vim. This of course was a happy find and I would like to share what I did to get it as close to what I use.

To get it up and going if you don’t have an .inputrc file you’ll need to make one and add the following lines…

set editing-mode vi
set keymap vi
set show-mode-in-prompt on

This enables vim bindings with bash, and others that use readline such as irb. When you are in insert mode you will see a + symbol at the far left side of the screen and : if you are in normal mode. I have added a bit extras for myself, namely jj as a binding for esc in insert mode:

$if mode=vi
  set keymap vi-insert
  # Lets you press 'jj' really fast to get out of 'insert mode'
  "jj": vi-movement-mode
$endif

One thing I would love to figure out but haven’t had success with yet is modifying the visuals for when you are in insert mode versus normal mode. I would love to change the color of my $PS2 to yellow or something like that when I am in normal mode.