IdeaVim

Raised as a usability problem by 13 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2011–2025), in 14 threads.

People raised many different problems with IdeaVim, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 15 complaints

Vim mode sticks to read-only tabs and keybinds break, forcing awkward workarounds to get keys back2025-02-12
Can't use vim-sandwich plugin functionality in IdeaVim2022-06-29
Basic vim commands like '' and u don't behave as expected2022-05-17
Switching between keyboard and menu operation slowed the user down2020-08-27
Ctrl-V pastes instead of visual block mode, and keys sometimes process out of order2020-08-05
Surround emulation breaks macros; undo needs two presses unless cursor moved2020-07-01
Vim emulation has many things that don't work correctly within minutes2019-12-15
Undo adds cursor movements to the stack and bundles multiple actions, so they can't be undone individually2019-10-02
Modal opens but stays in Normal mode, so user cannot type text2017-05-07
No indication of current mode and some commands don't work2016-04-13
Undo and redo break because Vim and IntelliJ shortcuts conflict2013-09-24
Navigating backwards and forwards through changes doesn't work well; workarounds needed2013-06-15
Vim plugins don't work and macro playback grinds the editor to a halt2013-06-15
Plugin crashes often, forcing full restart or disabling, sometimes blocking text entry2011-08-08
Undo loses changes completely with no redo; many inconsistencies and bugs2011-06-07