The Xcode 13 beta has some basic Vim keybindings! The bindings are very rough, but it still feels so much nicer to be navigating using my familiar Vim bindings. A couple things I noticed aside from the omissions already stated by Apple:

  • Visual Select Line does not select the whole line. It selects everything to the right of the cursor. This is a big pain for me since I select a whole line all the time.
  • It feels a little sluggish going from insert mode to normal mode.
  • No Macro support, it is just the most basic key bindings. That does include things like select inside, though.
  • The interaction with Xcode placeholders and Vim is a little weird, but passable.

Coming from VSCode with their Vim plugin, Xcode has a long way to go. That said, I’m still excited and I hope Apple invests more money in improving the Vim bindings.