Question

I’ve got a cntrl c and cntrl v mapped to xclip, however its a hassle to have to remember to use instead of regular y and p. Is there a way to alias the two or send contents of y and p to xclip, so I can just use y and p for all copy and pasting?

vmap <C-c> y:call system("xclip -i -selection clipboard", getreg("\""))<CR>:call system("xclip -i", getreg("\""))<CR>
nmap <C-v> :call setreg("\"",system("xclip -o -selection clipboard"))<CR>p")")")"))

Answer 1

Are you trying to use the X clipboard for all copy and pastes? If so, a good alternative to xclip is to make sure you’re using a vim with X support (it’s really easy to compile Vim if your version doesn’t have it) and then add the following to your vimrc:

set clipboard=unnamed

All yanks and deletes will then automatically go to the * register (which is the X selection register).

Instead of setting clipboard=unnamed, you can also use the X selection register for a single operation by using (e.g.)

"*yw
"*yy
"*ya(

or whatever.

Obviously, this doesn’t answer your question as to how to use xclip, but hopefully it offers an alternative approach.