Question

I’ve been using Vim for a while now, and it’s struck me as odd that an editor with such a focus on reducing keystrokes would leave a large, easily-reachable key such as Tab unbound.

It’s huge, it’s right under my left pinky, and it’s just sitting there. I feel a little silly even asking this question, but I feel like I’m missing something.

Is there some reason <Tab> is left without a predefined purpose in Normal and Visual modes — perhaps some backward compatibility or edge case I’m not aware of? Should I just go ahead and make use of it in my own Vim configuration without fear, or is this a bad idea?

Answer 1

Tab and CTRL-I are the same in Vim, and it’s used to go through the jump list (opposite is CTRL-O).

From the documentation (:help <tab>):

<Tab>       or                  *CTRL-I* *<Tab>*
CTRL-I          Go to [count] newer cursor position in jump list
                (not a motion command).
                In a |quickfix-window| it takes you to the position of
                the error under the cursor.
                {not in Vi}
                {not available without the |+jumplist| feature}