Re: Problem mapping Ctrl+Alt combinations in GVIM on windows

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Problem mapping Ctrl+Alt combinations in GVIM on windows
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 15:26:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: William E. Skeith III <wes_zilla@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: vim_use@googlegroups.com
To: vim_use@googlegroups.com <vim_use@googlegroups.com>

On 02/09/11 19:59, William E. Skeith III wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am trying to map some basic Ctrl+Alt key combinations for GVIM on windows,
> for example>
> :imap<C-M-L> <C-Right>
>
> but I've become seriously stuck. It seems that windows GVIM does not respond
> at all to<C-M-x>, where x is virtually any printable character (0-9,a-z,
> punctuation, etc.).
>
> To test, I hit ctrl-Q while in insert mode, and then ctrl-alt-x key
> combinations, (as described above) and nothing happens at all. However, it
> does respond to other non-printable keys, for example<M-C-Left>, but that's
> about it.
>
> Can anyone else confirm this to be the case? And if so, are there any
> work-arounds? Key combinations like that would be extremely useful for me...
> By the way, I'm using version 7.3.46, installed just a few days ago.
>
> Many thanks in advance for your help.
>
> -WES
>

Ctrl-Alt-letter keys may be preempted by the OS, or they may trigger a menu.

When you type
:verbose set wak?

what is the answer?

Oh, and 7.3.046 is already old hat: for W32 I recommend the "Vim without
Cream" distribution, available as gvim-<version>.exe (a self-installer,
currently for 7.3.289) at http://sourceforge.net/projects/cream/files/

Best regards,
Tony.

============================================
Hi Tony,

Thanks for the quick response! I had already discovered the issue with menu
interference, so I have set winaltkeys=no from my vimrc. This problem does
seem a little conspicuous to me, since it is not just some keys, but _every_
key. GVIM is only responding to <M-C-k> if k is an arrow key, or some other
control key like <BS>,<Del>,<Ins>.

I will upgrade as you suggested, and see if that helps...
Thanks again.

-WES

Hm, if Ctrl-V (or Crl-Q if you use Ctrl-V to paste) followed by
Ctrl-Alt-<letter> fails to elicit any response (with 'showmode' on, the
^V or maybe ^Q remains in the lower right corner, and nothing appears in
the buffer), then for some reason Vim doesn't get that key. Maybe the OS
snatches it, I don't know. It might be better in gvim than in Console
Vim, but no guarantee.

In general, the "best" keys for the {lhs} of a mapping (keys which Vim
will receive and which don't already have a preset binding) are the
function keys, F2 to F12 (F1 is already Help, and F10 may or may not be
a Menu key), then after that on many systems Shift-F1 to Shift-F12 (on
Linux, Ctrl-F1 to Ctrl-F12 are usually reserved by the window manager
for its own purposes, but if you run Vim only on Windows they should be
usable too).

Best regards,
Tony.
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