The Vim bindings have the same issue. Sure, it's modal, and you have to hit `i` before you can insert text... but there's nearly no features when you're not in insert mode. The only one I was able to trigger off the top of my head was using `dd` to delete a line... and it didn't even yank it, so p wouldn't paste it back in. No searching, no undoing, no applying commands to multiple lines, no `.` to repeat the last action...

Like the emacs mode, it feels like it was implemented to check a feature off on a list, not because someone wanted to take advantage of the things that vi/emacs do well.

Well, I went in and submitted a pull request that'll at least give it undo as a binding and [count] args on the existing commands that it's appropriate for.

https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/pull/381

Julian Viereck created Skywriter/Ace's keybinding system with the requirement that it had to be able to handle Emacs and vi style keybindings. Those of us working the most on Skywriter were actually fine with the default bindings, but we looked up the different keybinding patterns used by Emacs and vi and made it possible to do those.

There's a bit of effort to go from that capability to a full set of bindings. I know that Gozala (on GitHub) worked a bit on vi bindings. For a motivated hacker, it's possible and likely not too much work to fit Ace with some slick bindings.

Agreed. If it just implemented killing and yanking (and selecting regions, which goes along with these), it would be semi-viable.

Also missing C-a/C-e. All the meta bindings are noops as far as I can tell. C-<space> doesn't work to anchor the selection. Just generally worthless.