The way to distinguish command-mode and insert-mode in Bash's Vi command line editing

Question

I\'m always little bit confused when bash in vi-mode is switched to insert-mode, because it doesn\'t give any tip about used mode (command or edit). Is there any way to dist

Answer 1

Building on @Isaac Hanson's answer you can set the cursor style to reflect the mode (just like in VIM) by setting these in your .inputrc:

set editing-mode vi
set show-mode-in-prompt on
set vi-ins-mode-string \1\e[6 q\2
set vi-cmd-mode-string \1\e[2 q\2

# optionally:
# switch to block cursor before executing a command
set keymap vi-insert
RETURN: "\e\n"

This will give you a beam cursor in insert mode or a block cursor for normal mode.

Other options (replace the number after \e[):

        Ps = 0  -> blinking block.
        Ps = 1  -> blinking block (default).
        Ps = 2  -> steady block.
        Ps = 3  -> blinking underline.
        Ps = 4  -> steady underline.
        Ps = 5  -> blinking bar (xterm).
        Ps = 6  -> steady bar (xterm).

Your terminal must support DECSCURSR (like xterm, urxvt, iTerm2). TMUX also supports these (if you set TERM=xterm-256color outside tmux).