 So I was scrolling through reddit the other day as you do and I came across something that is very Interesting, so I want to share that with you today. So there is a Vim mode that allows you to use it in a very Non-Vim like way, and it's called easy mode now. I Saw this I was like them doesn't have an easy mode Vim is notoriously hard to exit It's so hard to exit that it's become a meme right? It's not supposed to be easy. You're supposed to have to learn it That's the point of them right? It's kind of like having a easy mode for emacs or something like that You know, it's just it's antithetical to the purpose of the thing, right? But no there is actually an easy mode for Vim and it is really really weird So let me show you what it looks like so first I should give credit where credit is due the original discovery of this although I'm sure it's probably not the first discovery of it came from this blog here learned by example I'll link it in the video description below, but I didn't I wanted to give credit just because you know That's what you should do, but anyways, let me show you what Vims easy mode looks like so in order to get into Vim easy mode You type in Vim and then you do the dash y option and then you'd give the name of the file that you want to edit or create So I'm just gonna do test dot txt Now out of the bat it still kind of looks like Vim, right? There's not much here You will notice though if you have a Vim RC or in Vim RC or something like that It will not follow your Vim RC as far as I can tell not a big deal because you're not gonna be using this for very long And the one thing you'll also notice is that it automatically puts you in insert mode now Theoretically this could be good I suppose it would save you from having to actually you know press the I key in order to Get into insert mode if you just wanted to hop right into something and start you know writing But that's not really the idea here. The idea here is that you can you know type You know as you do all this very awesome pros that I'm you know putting down here And then you can use your mouse So if I wanted to do this I could highlight this and then start typing again And it actually replaced that and if I wanted to you know do the same thing here I could do the Linux cast, you know, whatever, you know, it's that's Weird because that's not the way them works, but also let's just say you wanted to quit How would you quit and save? Well in normal Vim you do colon wq But obviously you're an insert mode so to get out of any kind of mode that is not normal mode You'd normally escape and you'd think well wait on the whole thing. What did that do right? You hit escape and insert goes away and then it comes right back insert goes The escape key doesn't work the escape key doesn't work With what's going on here? The escape key is like the most important Vim key You know some people go so far as to remap the caps lock key as escape because it's one of the most important Vim keys Right it doesn't work in easy mode Okay, so so how do you get out of this thing? Well control Q allows you to save So it asks you there at the bottom Would you like to save this and hit yes and that will get you out of it And then if you go back into it actually shows you where it was Now here are a couple other really weird things. So let's just cop Let's just highlight something here with the mouse as you would do in a text editor and hit control C now in Normal Vim control C does weird things right it definitely does not copy But in easy mode if I hit control V you can see it actually Copy that to the system buffer or the system the system clipboard just like you'd expect in like a word processor It's really weird because that's not the usually if you wanted to copy something to the system clipboard You'd have to find a way of you know highlighting it and then control shift V You know that would copy it to the clipboard that the is managed by the terminal that you're using Or you have to set up them in a certain way in order for the copy and paste functionality with the Yank and paste and stuff like that in order to get it to your your clipboard But here copying is just a matter of highlighting with the mouse Hitting control C going to a new line hitting control V That is I mean that's the way it should work in like regular word processors But it's not the way that it works in Vim. It's really freaking weird and it's freaking me out Obviously another thing that has gone here, right is normal mode normal mode is what you do when you get into escape Or when you hit the escape key to get out of insert mode and then you could use the you know The Vim keys to move around but that Doesn't work because you can't get into normal mode You have to use the good God the arrow keys like a like a neanderthal, you know It's really really freaking weird. So what's the purpose of all this, right? It's Called easy mode. So if you if we actually get out of this control queue and Yes, sure. Why not and we do man Vim We'll actually see if we scroll down here to the dash Y option When it takes a little bit we could actually you know have gotten here faster But it's right here start Vim in easy mode just like the executable was called even or review Makes Vim behave like a click-and-type editor. That's all we get now There are apparently according to the blog where I found this a few things that you should be able to do now Apparently you can't hit control. Oh in order to use The command mode, but I couldn't get that to work or control You know if I go back to that thing here and go back to our thing And it hit control. Oh, actually that does actually work So if you hit control. Oh, you could then use you know calling queue in order to quit or write and quit or whatever you wanted to do So theoretically the Vim stuff is still there. So that's nice So control. Oh, and then we could do, you know, write and quit and that would save and quit it So that's cool. There was also another one that he puts here or they put here Control L which will get you back into normal mode. So if we try that so we hit control L that gets us into normal mode and You can use then Vim just like you would normally use and that that would also allow you to then use wait a minute. Hold on a second Control L Would allow you to use the Vim keys So if you if you got into easy mode and you needed to go back to actually using Vim the proper way You could hit control L and then use the Vim keys just like you normally would so Yeah, that's easy mode With proper copy and paste, you know, just like the regular kind And always in insert mode unless you you know deliberately exit insert mode. It is really weird It's like this whole situation Is bonkers to me, right? It's just I once you hit control L. I think I'm not sure how you get back to easy mode. Apparently it doesn't Put you right back into easy mode. There's probably a way But once you're in easy, you know, this whole easy mode is just like, you know, oh, we can copy with the mouse We could I wonder if drag and drop works. No, it doesn't that'd be that'd be even more weird But you kind of get the idea, right? It gives you the option of using your mouse inside of them Now there are ways of making them more mouse friendly with your vmrc. You know, a lot of people do that Uh, but it's not really the way them is meant to be used So but this is full fledged mouse support inside of them But also it takes away all of the vm stuff, right? The vm keys here don't work by default. You're in insert mode all the time Just like you would be in like you open up library office You're in insert mode because you can just start typing and that's the way this works here, right? And so it takes away all the vm stuff and it's just if you wanted to use this to You know just type a document or whatever and you're more used to using, you know your mouse and keyboard together I suppose this is before you but I mean It kind of takes away the goodness of using vm because vm the reason why vm is good is because of the vm things that it comes with things like You know macro mode and all the command Modes and the regular modes that you get, you know, visual block mode and visual mode and all this stuff and Find and replace and all the stuff that goes into vm that other text editors don't really have or Have in different ways, right? That's what makes vm vm and the easy mode takes all of that away it really The first time I got into it. I was like, man, this is just really freaking weird I'm not sure if I'm okay with this You know, I'm not I was very very uncomfortable when I realized that in order to move around You have to go back to using the arrow keys like I disabled the arrow keys and vm Maybe two years ago or so because at some point when I first started using them The arrow keys was was still a handicap for me Like it's still was my primary means of navigating right and by default arrow keys will work just like you would expect them to And then but I disabled them so that I could get used to using the vm keys Which is what you're supposed to use And then I go back to Them easy mode and the vm keys don't work and you have to go back to using the arrow keys It was a very jarring experience. I think I'm going to need some therapy So that is it for this video if you've ever used them in easy mode Let me know in the comment section below or for you find this just as weird as I I do Also, I'd love to hear from you in the comment section below You can follow me on mastodon or odyssey those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linux cast links for libera pay and youtube will be in the video description as well Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and youtube you guys are all absolutely amazing Without two the channels was not be anywhere near where it is right now So thank you so very very much for your support If you are still watching this video right now I would really appreciate it if you dropped a like on this video With my little hiatus because of my illness YouTube has kind of removed me from the algorithm So any likes that you guys can give me would be highly appreciated. Thank you very much for that Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time