Typing in Uppercase Without CAPS LOCK (Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition)

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18.10. Typing in Uppercase Without CAPS LOCK

You may want to input text in all uppercase letters. Using CAPS LOCK in vi can be a pain because you have to release CAPS LOCK almost every time you want to type a vi command. Here's a nice way to type lowercase letters during input and ex modes; they'll be mapped to uppercase automatically.

Try putting this in your .exrc (Section 17.5) file:

map! a A
map! b B
map! c C
  ...
map! z Z

Anytime you type (during text-input mode) an a, the editor will map it into A. What's that you say . . . you don't want this all the time? Just put it in a file called .f (for FORTRAN), and type:

:source .f

when you want FORTRAN mode. Of course, you can define a function key (Section 18.2) to :source this.

[After that, anywhere you want a lowercase letter, type CTRL-v first to cancel the map temporarily. For example, to type the command :w, type : CTRL-v w.

You can also go into the ex command mode by typing the vi command Q. That takes you to the ex colon (:) prompt -- where the map! macros won't affect what you type. To return to vi mode from ex command mode, type :vi. -- JP]

--BB, in net.unix on Usenet, 9 October 1986


18.9. Repeating a vi Keymap		18.11. Text-Input Mode Cursor Motion with No Arrow Keys