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The layout of my netbook's keyboard means that using the arrow keys for navigation is slightly uncomfortable. Is there a way to make GNU Info pages use vim-style hjkl navigation? I know I can

info printf | less

...and use j and k to scroll up and down, which is good enough as I use info pages for reading so navigating to specific characters isn't vital; but it would be nice if I could do this within info, rather than resorting to a pipe.

evilsoup
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    This doesn't answer the question so I'll just post it as a comment. You can also use `info --subnodes -o - "$@" | less`. That way, you will be able to see all of the info about an item. –  Jul 23 '13 at 18:48
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    Note that the `info` standalone browser documentation is available at `info "info stand-alone"`. Where you can type `i` then `vi` or `key` and then `TAB` twice to see the matching index entries. – Stéphane Chazelas Jul 24 '13 at 02:54

2 Answers2

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Yes, info has support for pretty much any key binding scheme you like; see http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/info-stnd/html_node/Custom-Key-Bindings.html and note in particular the --vi-keys startup option for Info.

tripleee
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The arrow keys are the least meaingful way to navigate info documents; as well, the hjkl keys are the least meaningful ways to navigate with vim-style keybindings.

Info uses emacs-style keybindings which aren't so bad once you figure them out. try info info to get started and then hit h to check out some of the keys. just the same, open a file with less file and hit h to see what it has to offer.

In vim itself, you aren't doing it right until you're using the many different keys for navigating through text-objects. :help text-objects.

Push comes to shove, here is a vim plugin to add an :Info command for viewing info pages with all the magic of vim keybindings. i would fully recommend learning how to just use info instead, as it was designed in a very particular fashion to be extremely efficiently navigable.

slm
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Josh McGee
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  • Thanks for this; the 'skip to next node' option is very interesting in particular. – evilsoup Jul 23 '13 at 18:27
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    That's all great, but some people don't want to learn the keybindings for multiple quite extensive editors ;) – xeruf May 17 '20 at 15:53