Can you provide a concrete example, like a piece of text with the current cursor position, the outcome you want to achieve and the sequence of shortcuts you're using to achieve that with your favorite text editor?
> Navigating by word is my primary means of moving through a line.
So how does your new editor do that more efficiently than pressing <Esc> once, followed by pressing <w> or <b> once for each word?
Navigating by word is a matter of holding the Option key and pressing left or right arrow. Same number of keys, but works pretty much everywhere. The box used to enter this comment, for example.
Just to be super clear, I don’t care what other people do. Go nuts with vi bindings. I was just agreeing with what someone else said, that vi bindings aren’t peak UI and that “hacker” != “vi”
No, you suggested that leaving insert mode to navigate by words is somehow less efficient (since navigating by word is your primary way to navigate in lines) and that maybe that's why you're happy you stopped using vi.
Now we found out that leaving insert mode to navigate by words requires the "same number of keys", so @gsinclair was right and it is unnecessary to stay in insert mode for navigation.
> Same number of keys, but works pretty much everywhere. The box used to enter this comment, for example.
If efficient word navigation was the only thing vim key bindings had to offer I wouldn't be using them. But they do offer many things the current text box does not offer and since (as a programmer) I'm spending 95% of my time in an IDE and not some browser text box, I'll gladly accept some inconsistencies if that means editing and navigating in my IDE becomes more pleasant.
> Navigating by word is my primary means of moving through a line.
So how does your new editor do that more efficiently than pressing <Esc> once, followed by pressing <w> or <b> once for each word?