How to avoid constant switching to and from English keyboard layout to type Vim commands when writing in non-Latin language (e.g., Greek)?
keymapping, vim
Solution
This problem can be solved with the help of the `keymap` option. It allows to define an alternate keyboard mapping to use in modes requiring text input.
To switch between the default and alternate keymaps while in Insert, Replace, or Command-line mode (but not Normal mode), use Ctrl+^ (Ctrl+6). Changing the keymap affects text input only; keyboard behavior in Normal mode stays the same regardless of the current keymap setting. One can leave Insert mode writing in Greek and immediately use Normal-mode keybindings without switching to a different keyboard layout. If one then returns to Insert mode or, for example, starts a search by typing `/`, Vim switches the keymap back to Greek automatically.
The current keymap used in those text-entering modes is remembered between switchings to other modes. The only exception from this behaviour is made for Command-line mode which always starts with the default keymap, since most of the time it is required to type an Ex command (in ASCII). With the `keymap` option set, user is supposed to work in Vim keeping system keyboard layout set to English while switching Vim keymap with Ctrl+^ (instead of the system-wide layout switch).
To enable, say, the UTF-8 Greek keymap permanently, add the following line to your `.vimrc` file.
:set keymap=greek_utf-8
There are many predefined keymaps for a large set of languages, you can browse them all in Vim itself using `:e $VIMRUNTIME/keymap`. Note that usually there are several keymaps provided for one language which differ only by character encoding, so that anybody could choose one that suits their configuration.
I also recommend setting the options below to specify whether the keymap should be enabled by default in Insert mode and when entering a search pattern:
:set iminsert=0 imsearch=-1
See `:help iminsert` and `:help imsearch` for the detailed explanation.
There is also a special language mode that, if I am not mistaken, was introduced in Vim earlier than `keymap`. It allows to achieve the behaviour similar to the one provided by `keymap` through manually specifying letter pairs that correspond to the keys on keyboard in a long string to be saved in the `langmap` option. Personally—my native language is not English, too—I prefer (and recommend) using the `keymap` way instead.
In conclusion, I should emphasize that all of the above is equally applicable to any other language Vim has (or can be configured to have) a keymap for.
See also my answer to a similar question ‘Vim “annoyance” with keyboard layouts’ that has been asked since I originally gave this answer.
Problem
I am giving Vim a serious try for coding my Python apps. However, Vim is proving to be so flexible, I was thinking to use it as my main editor at work for writing lawyer/legal documents. The problem is that my mother tongue is not English but Greek. So, I have mapped Alt+Shift to change between English and Greek keyboard layouts. The issue I am experiencing is that I have to press Alt+Shift each time I want to enter a Vim command (to return back to English). So it is Alt+Shift when I type my document, then Alt+Shift again to enter Vim commands. This defeats the purpose of using Vim, at least in terms of speed of use. So my question is simple: Is there any way to avoid those frequent Alt+Shift keyboard layout changes just for entering Vim commands when writing in a non-Latin language (e.g., Greek)?