Question

I recently found VIM and started using it. I found the arrows and backspace to be flawed.
so I did this to the backspace

set backspace+=indent,eol,start

how can this be done to the arrow key to allow normal navigation?

Answer 1

You don’t say exactly what aspect of the arrow keys you think is “flawed”, so I’ll just have to guess.

You can use the whichwrap setting to get part of what you probably want. From :help whichwrap:

'whichwrap' 'ww'    string  (Vim default: "b,s", Vi default: "")
            global
            {not in Vi}
    Allow specified keys that move the cursor left/right to move to the
    previous/next line when the cursor is on the first/last character in
    the line.  Concatenate characters to allow this for these keys:
        char   key    mode  ~
         b    <BS>   Normal and Visual
         s    <Space>    Normal and Visual
         h    "h"    Normal and Visual (not recommended)
         l    "l"    Normal and Visual (not recommended)
         <    <Left>     Normal and Visual
         >    <Right>    Normal and Visual
         ~    "~"    Normal
         [    <Left>     Insert and Replace
         ]    <Right>    Insert and Replace
    For example: >
        :set ww=<,>,[,]
    allows wrap only when cursor keys are used.
    When the movement keys are used in combination with a delete or change
    operator, the <EOL> also counts for a character.  This makes "3h"
    different from "3dh" when the cursor crosses the end of a line.  This
    is also true for "x" and "X", because they do the same as "dl" and
    "dh".  If you use this, you may also want to use the mapping
    ":map <BS> X" to make backspace delete the character in front of the
    cursor.
    When 'l' is included and it is used after an operator at the end of a
    line then it will not move to the next line.  This makes "dl", "cl",
    "yl" etc. work normally.
    NOTE: This option is set to the Vi default value when 'compatible' is
    set and to the Vim default value when 'compatible' is reset.

In your case, you probably want:

:set whichwrap+=<,>

This will make left and right wrap around line endings.

You can also try mapping <Up> and <Down> to gk and gj in normal and visual modes if the distinction between logical and display lines is confusing you. Alternatively, you could :set nowrap to remove the distinction altogether.