However, what I'd really love would be a bookmarklet I could click to Vi-ify every <textarea> on the current page. I've got "It's All Text" set up in Firefox to open <textearea>s in gvim, but it's still clunkier than editing right there in the page.
Of course, Pentadactyl changes a lot about how the browser works beyond just text editing, so it may not be for everyone.
javascript:(function(){var d=document;var s=d.createElement('script');var t=d.getElementsByTagName('textarea');s.setAttribute('src','http://webvi.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/lib/webvi.js);d.body.appendChild(s);for(var i in t){if(typeof t[i]=='object')t[i].setAttribute('class','webvi');}webvi_init();})();I had to make some changes to get it working on my machine:
javascript:(function() {var d=document;var t=d.getElementsByTagName('textarea');for(var i in t){if(typeof t[i]=='object') t[i].setAttribute('class','webvi');}var s=d.createElement('script');s.async=false;s.setAttribute('src','http://webvi.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/lib/webvi.js');d.body.appendChild(s);webvi_init();})();
EDIT: No, that doesn't work either. It runs in Firebug if I paste it into the console and remove the "javascript:" prefix, but it doesn't run as a bookmarklet: it just complains about webvi_init() not being defined, even though the async flag is cleared. :(((
Would be very nice once it gets more mature, though.
edit: For example, 'A' doesn't work.
But in seriousness, although I agree about the importance of configurability, I still find that things like "j is down" and "dd deletes the current line" are an important, integral part of the vi-philosophy.
Placing the most common tasks behind the easiest key-bindings for maximum efficiency and ergonomy is the idea that got me to try out vim in the first place.
I like that someone (Bill Joy and Bram Molenaar) has solved the most common issues in editor-usage in a great way leaving me to configure only some special cases.
Wouldn't it be easier to just use div element with contentEditable attribute? Currently contentEditable has limited API and a lot of inconstancies across browsers, but in the longer run it seems to be the way to go: http://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2011-08-31/future-editing-web
I'm also skeptical about canvas, so when I implemented my own jsvi years ago (at http://src.internetconnection.net/vi and now at http://geocar.sdf1.org/vi ) I didn't use canvas. It works everywhere but chrome (which won't let me capture escape), and it produces the same results all the way back to MSIE6.
In retrospect, I would've had an easier time overriding keystrokes on a textarea.
http://gpl.internetconnection.net/vi/
What disappoints me about all these implementations is the absence of text objects, though. I love getting edition words or parentheses using commands such as caw and ci"
I'm the author of that vi.
What are "text objects"?
PS: "caw" and "ci" aren't in vi.
I also tried switching to a qwerty keyboard layout on my computer, but then I'm told that ':' is not a valid command (this might have to do with my lack of vi-savyness, so I'm taking tips - but using ':' to enter some commands is how it works on my linux box anyway).
There is also a vim mode under development. https://github.com/Gozala/vice