Edit text areas using vi key bindings, inside the textbox, in Firefox (without opening a separate window)

I'm using Firefox. Is there any way to edit the contents of a textbox using vi key bindings, inside the text area (not in a separate window)? For instance, is there a Firefox extension for that?

I know about It's All Text!, which lets you click a button or press a hotkey to open an external editor to edit the contents of a textbox. However, this opens the editor in a separate window, which somehow feels a bit clunky and heavyweight to me. I'd prefer to be able to just edit the text that's inside the textbox, in place, using vi key bindings. Is there any way to do it?

(I also tried the jV extension, but couldn't get it to work at all. I could edit the contents of a textbox, but then the edits were discarded leaving me with an empty textbox (or whatever the initial state of the textbox was).)

D.W.

Posted 2013-01-04T01:40:19.753

Reputation: 1 269

Did you search the add-ons site for the keywords vi or vim? – romainl – 2013-01-04T08:00:18.993

@romainl, yup! (Good suggestion, though.) – D.W. – 2013-01-04T18:16:28.703

Possible duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/75652/is-there-a-firefox-add-on-to-use-vim-to-edit-textboxes

– Ingo Karkat – 2013-01-05T11:49:06.747

@IngoKarkat, if you look at the answers, you'll find they don't answer my question. All the answers there involve starting up a separate process which opens up an external editor in a separate window. That's one of the things I read before asking this question. (Thanks for linking to that question; I had seen it before, but it's good to have linked for reference.) – D.W. – 2013-01-05T19:00:21.203

I'm afraid that [external launches of Vim] is all there is, if the mentioned jV extension doesn't work for you. – Ingo Karkat – 2013-01-06T01:49:11.840

Answers

Try out the wasavi extension.

(It used to be available here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/wasavi/. However, the author stopped publishing on AMO: https://github.com/akahuku/wasavi/issues/106)

lydell

Posted 2013-01-04T01:40:19.753

Reputation: 321

Dead link, the wasavi Github README no longer has a link to the Firefox addon store anymore. – Noah Huppert – 2018-05-22T18:25:34.380

Check out EmbeddedEditor. It goes all the way (embedding vim itself), rather than just implementing a few vi-like commands, but that should be all the better! :)

Marshall Eubanks

Posted 2013-01-04T01:40:19.753

Reputation: 619

This looks fantastic, but unfortunately it is several years out-of-date and not compatible with modern versions of firefox. – jayhendren – 2014-04-09T20:35:09.570

Pterosaur does exactly what you're looking for. It gives you full vim functionality without leaving your textbox.

James

Posted 2013-01-04T01:40:19.753

Reputation: 11

No longer maintained for about a year. – Noah Huppert – 2018-05-22T18:26:08.177