This Bugzilla instance is a read-only archive of historic NetBeans bug reports. To report a bug in NetBeans please follow the project's instructions for reporting issues.
NetBeans should offer an editor that has the same feel/keybindings as the traditional 'vi', 'vim' and 'emacs' editors. This kind of feature could be configured in NetBeans as easily as a radio button or check box where an traditional user of vi or emacs can do all of his or her edits with a vi or emacs type of editor. But, can also reap all the other benefits built into NetBeans. The following text summarizes comments from a developer who has used vi and vim for 15 years and would like to try NetBeans if Source Editor behaved in a similar manner as vi: "It's possible to do most of what NetBeans 4.x has in a good editor such as vim, emacs, or jedit. But NetBeans has all of the integration done already in one standard package. However, the editor key bindings will prevent me from using it as a replacement for vi or vim. Similar sort of argument exists for emacs users as well. Please note that a lot of vi users have actually migrated to vim, which supports features such as multiple buffers, windows, splitting windows, and a lot of other features. NetBeans should look at the vim extensions to vi as well and make those available in a NetBeans vi type editor. Also, note that vim (and especially emacs) are more than just keybindings. Both editors are extremely programmable. Many developers take advantage of the programmability to extend the editor, and also to add IDE features as needed. Some of the more common extensions should be looked at as well."
There are 5 different issues related to vi / vim / emacs / other keybindings and similar editor functionality support. Those are being consolidated into enhancement issue 12858. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 12858 ***