Keybindings with Alt modifier.

FEATURE REQUEST

I would like to be able to bind key sequences with alt to vim keys, specifically Alt + v to V like so:

{ "before": [ "alt+v" ], "after": [ "V" ], },

Would this be hard to implement ?

[thisisrandy]

+1 A common use case is A-j/A-k for moving lines. It’s annoying to have to use the arrow keys for this in VSCode, which has the same mapped to A-down/A-up. I poked around in the code for a bit trying to figure out where captured keys are defined, but I’ve spent too long at this point to want to do it on my own. Please reopen

[berknam]

The problem with binding to alt+... key combinations is that it would make those combinations stop working for their normal behavior and there is a lot of alt+... that are either used by default vscode commands or by other extensions.

If we bound to those key combos we would enter in conflict with the commands of those other extensions. This would happen even if the user wasn’t using those key combos for any remap.

It might be possible to only bind to those key combos when a remap that uses it is configured. But it would still conflict if there was the same key combo being used by another extension.

For now as a workaround for moving lines with <A-j> and <A-k> you can add this to your ‘keybindings.json’ file:

    {
        "key": "alt+j",
        "command": "editor.action.moveLinesDownAction",
        "when": "editorTextFocus && !editorReadonly && vim.active"
    },
    {
        "key": "alt+k",
        "command": "editor.action.moveLinesUpAction",
        "when": "editorTextFocus && !editorReadonly && vim.active"
    },