I've wanted to try a Vim Clutch for a few years now, but once I got it set up, it turned out to be disapointing.
A Vim Clutch is a foot pedal that toggles between insert mode
and normal mode. I set my clutch up a bit differently than the original vim
clutch because I wanted the position of my foot to encode the state of vim: up
in normal mode and down in insert mode. I mapped the pedal to the middle mouse
button and added this to my .vimrc:
nnoremap <MiddleMouse> i
inoremap <MiddleRelease> <Esc>
Once I had that set up, I realized that I rarely use i to get into insert
mode. Instead, I use commands like a (append), o (open a new line), cw
(change word), ci" (change inside quotation) to enter insert mode. As a
result, I rarely found myself using the foot pedal.
I now have a gently used foot pedal that is looking for a purpose in life. A co-worker suggested mapping the foot pedal to Command-Tab to switch between applications. Maybe I will try that.
