Cursor Mode

Change the color of the cursor based on the mode we're in for terminal vim. At the moment it is tested for iTerm2 only (because is the only thing that I use) but basic implementation for xterm/urxvt is there and should work.

Why would I want this?

Vim already has :h 'showmode' but I like colors to distinguish things. Other plugin offer something colored like vim-airline or powerline/vim-powerline that let you color part of the statusline based on the mode we are in but specially if we have big screen it is not so easy to see the color in the bottom left corner of the statusline, so I prefer coloring what I'm looking at that usually is where my cursor is.

How to use it

Install it as any plugin, using your plugin manager of choice:

vim-plug

Plug 'vheon/vim-cursormode'

Vundle.vim

Plugin 'vheon/vim-cursormode'

NeoBundle.vim

NeoBundle 'vheon/vim-cursormode'

Or using vim-pathogen

Cursor colors

For setting the color to be used in the different mode you have a couple of options:

• define a variable g:cursormode_color_map
• define a variable with a name like g:cursormode#{colorscheme}#color_map i.e. let cursormode#solarized#color_map = {...} This kind of maps are reloaded if you change the colorscheme. As you may have noticed this are autoload variable, so you could define them in a autoload/cursormode/{colorscheme}.vim file. So for example you could ship this file with a colorscheme.

If none of the above are defined we use a default color map using the colors in the default colorscheme in iTerm2

Color map format

Every color map is in the form:

let cursormode_color_map = {
      \   "mode":      "#rrggbb",
      ...
      \ }

The mode string are the ones returned by :h mode() and the colors are in the form of #rrggbb.

For example this is a possible map:

let cursormode_color_map = {
      \   "n":      "#FFFFFF",
      \   "i":      "#0000FF",
      \   "v":      "#00FF00",
      \   "V":      "#FF0000",
      \   "\<C-V>": "#FFFF00",
      \ }

If you want to specify a color for a mode based on the background you can do it appending the background string to the mode

For example here is my solarized map with the normal mode color based on the background:

let cursormode_solarized_color_map = {
      \   "nlight": "#657b83",
      \   "ndark":  "#839496",
      \   "i":      "#268bd2",
      \   "v":      "#cb4b16",
      \   "V":      "#b58900",
      \   "\<C-V>": "#6c71c4",
      \ }

Known Issues

• At the moment only tested in iTerm2.
• Sporadically the view is moved, so for example I enter Insert mode and the current line is moved at the top as if I typed zt. I didn't find a way of debug this thing, so any input on this is welcome.
• Do not work when ssh into a remote machine

TODO

• fallback to coloring the entire statusline when using vim on remote machine through ssh
• Make a compatibility layer with guicursor

Credits

Idea stolen from http://www.blaenkdenum.com/posts/a-simpler-vim-statusline/ He uses the guicursor option which it's for GUI, MSDOW and Win32 console only but I use terminal vim on iTerm2 only at the moment so I thoght about sending escape codes to iTerm2 to change the cursor color.