It seems impossible to implement a <D-,> mapping.

[jordwalke]

It seems it is not possible to override the <D-,> preferences mapping because MacVim makes it a permanent shortcut. Would it be possible to allow this to be customized?

[eirnym]

This shotcut is an Apple-guidelined standard to call preferences of an application. You can try to change this shotcut in System Preferences.app for MacVim and check if you can bind it.

[jpetrie]

Anything we explicitly set a key equivalent for in MainMenu.nib can't be bound (or really, recognized) by vim; we don't ever implement performKeyEquivalent: so we don't get notified of any keystrokes that are key equivalents.

Intercepting the equivalent would not be the right course of action as it would leave the menu UI in an incorrect state.

Probably the right thing for MacVim to do here is respond to D- mappings by setting the appropriate key equivalents for the appropriate actions, and clearing them when the mapping doesn't correspond. We could use macmap.vim as the basis for such a mapping, I suspect.

There's a few other bugs floating around that are essentially this same problem.

[chdiza]

There's a few other bugs floating around that are essentially this same problem.

I don't really think this is a problem. Cmd-, is the universal Mac shortcut for preferences, just like Cmd-H is for hiding a window. A select few things like this shouldn't be mappable from within Vim, IMHO.

[eirnym]

At least remapping default keybindings in System Preferences works for other apps so if a man really wants to shoot his leg, he can try it.

[jordwalke]

I would like to use command+, as a way to bring up preferences for MacVim, but bring up my own special config file which sets prefernces for MacVim. I would also like to be able to script this from VimScript (using menu commands or something else) so that I can share that same experience with other people without having to fork MacVim. The Apple design guides probably don't say anything about not preventing people from customizing this mapping in the app, do they?

It sounds like some people might be misinterpreting the feature request here to be that I wish to force people to map command+, to something other than the current MacVim settings. That is not the case.

There are also other issues as well that are related. For example, I cannot find a way to make MacVim's command+n/command+shift+n behavior match other popular editors such as VSCode. That is because the menus are not changeable until a window is open in the first place. So how are you supposed to change the key shortcut for the first window you open? This brings me to another good point. How would we allow customizing of key mappings when no vim script has yet run? There hasn't yet been an opportunity to even run the menu commands.

Both the command+, shortcut and command+n suffer from this problem. The command+, suffers dually because you cannot even change it after a vim window is open. Are these two separate issues that warrant two separate fixes? Maybe not.

[eirnym]

@jordwalke Have you tried to unset/redifine this particular menu item in System Preferences.app? The key bindings from the menu are handled by OS X Window System Server, not by app itself.

[eirnym]

From a MacVim perspective itself, this issue is kind-a won't fix as this key binding works well if you set a different key for a menu item.

[jpetrie]

The key bindings from the menu are handled by OS X Window System Server, not by app itself.

The key equivalents are all hard-coded in MainMenu.nib. The OS is not providing them for MacVim.

That is because the menus are not changeable until a window is open in the first place. So how are you supposed to change the key shortcut for the first window you open? This brings me to another good point. How would we allow customizing of key mappings when no vim script has yet run? There hasn't yet been an opportunity to even run the menu commands.

These are good points; I believe we don't have a vim process until at least one window is open, so we'd have to rely on the .nib defaults for the very first run. Once MacVim's launched vim at least once, if we implement the scrape-and-map approach I suggested in my first comment, I guess we'd need to write the new key equivalents into defaults (where we store the other MacVim-specific preferences) in order to make them bind correctly on subsequent window-less launches.

That makes things more complicated. I don't generally like to encourage storing stuff in defaults since they don't travel with the user's .vimrc, et cetera, as well.

[eirnym]

The key equivalents are all hard-coded in MainMenu.nib. The OS is not providing them for MacVim.

Yes, and these keys are handled by Mac OS X. Replacing them to something else means breaking Apple Guidelines and it's not a thing which developers should do.

Replacing or unsetting key combinations in System Preferences.app will solve your issue. you can set up an Apple Script to change these settings if you need an automated process.

[jpetrie]

We don't rigidly adhere to Apple's guidelines. Nor do Apple's own applications in places. When it makes sense for the needs or desires of our users, we ignore them, because users are more important. Legacy fullscreen is an excellent example of this.

Unless I gravely misunderstand, @jordwalke is not asking for us to remove the default key equivalents. The request is for us to provide a way for users to remove or remap them if needed. This seems entirely inline with the proposed workaround involving System Preference except that it is done within the purview of MacVim itself and thus doesn't require external solutions, so it is significantly more convenient for users who want to do this.

Further, unless I misunderstand what you are suggesting @eirnym, the System Preferences workaround cannot be used to remove a key equivalent, only replace one (I'm thinking you're referring to the Keyboard / Shortcuts / App Shortcuts UI, which lets you remap key equivalents based on exact menu text; is there some other place to do this?). I'm also unaware of how you can manipulate these settings via AppleScript as you suggest. An example AppleScript providing that feature might be enough to satisfy the needs of the users asking for this functionality, if you can provide it.

[eirnym]

• @jpetrie Yes, you're right, that System Preferences don't provide "remove a key sequence" functionality. Probably p-list hacking will do this good enough
• various AppleScript scripts could be found here, here, and here
• Also these preferences are stored in com.apple.universalaccess and in org.vim.MacVim:

    "com.apple.custommenu.apps" =     (
        "org.vim.MacVim"
    );

   NSUserKeyEquivalents =     {
        Preferences = "@,";
    };

[eirnym]

Also you can do this programmatically as in old-good-days (hehe) If you want.
Apple documentation

[eirnym]

BTW, very few progams provide functionality to modify keybindings for menu to the user.

[jordwalke]

Unless I gravely misunderstand, @jordwalke is not asking for us to remove the default key equivalents. The request is for us to provide a way for users to remove or remap them if needed.

Correct.

I want to create a vim configuration for people (a plugin) that will open their .vimrc when they hit command+,