# Why modal editing became associated with Vim DevFeed: [Why modal editing became associated with Vim]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Hillel Wayne Published: 2025-10-21T16:46:24Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Newsletter feed for Hillel Wayne's Newsletter]() Topics: [Vim](), [GUI]() Tags: [keyboard](), [shortcuts](), [vim]() ## AI overview The article explains modal editing, focusing on how Vim uses modes to assign different functions to the same keys. It argues that modal editing's popularity likely followed from vi's historical success rather than from an obviously superior feature. ## Source excerpt A while back my friend Pablo Meier was reviewing some 2024 videogames and wrote this: I feel like some artists, if they didn't exist, would have the resulting void filled in by someone similar (e.g. if Katy Perry didn't exist, someone like her would have). But others don't have successful imitators or comparisons (thinking Jackie Chan, or Weird Al): they are irreplaceable. He was using it to describe auteurs but I see this as a property of opportunity, in that "replaceable" artists are those who work in bigger markets. Katy Perry's market is large, visible and obviously (but not easily) exploitable, so there are a lot of people who'd compete in her niche. Weird Al's market is unclear: while there were successful parody songs in the past, it wasn't clear there was enough opportunity there to support a superstar. I think that modal editing is in the latter category. Vim is now very popular and has spawned numerous successors. But its key feature, modes, is not obviously-beneficial, to the point that if Bill Joy didn't make vi (vim's direct predecessor) fifty years ago I don't think we'd have any modal editors today. A quick overview of "modal editing" In a non-modal editor, pressing the "u" key adds a "u" to your text, as you'd expect. In a modal editor, pressing "u" does something different depending on the "mode" you are in. In Vim's default "normal" mode, "u" undoes the last change to the text, while in the "visual" mode it lowercases all selected text. It only inserts the character in "insert" mode. All other keys, as well as chorded shortcuts (ctrl-x), work the same way. The clearest benefit to this is you can densely pack the keyboard with advanced commands. The standard US keyboard has 48ish keys dedicated to inserting characters. With the ctrl and shift modifiers that becomes at least ~150 extra shortcuts for each other mode. This is also what IMO "spiritually" distinguishes modal editing from contextual shortcuts. Even if a unimodal editor lets you change a k