Vim: Smart indent when entering insert mode on blank line?

Question

When I open a new line (via \'o\') my cursor jumps to a correctly indented position on the next line. On the other hand, entering insert mode while my cursor is on a blank l

Answer 1

Well this actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. One way to enable this is to add the following to your ~/.vimrc

"smart indent when entering insert mode with i on empty lines
function! IndentWithI()
    if len(getline('.')) == 0
        return "\"_ccO"
    else
        return "i"
    endif
endfunction
nnoremap  i IndentWithI()

It simply checks for an empty line when you hit 'i' from insert mode. If you are indeed on an empty line it will delete it and open a new one, effectively leveraging the working 'open line' behavior.

Note: "_ before the cc makes sure that your register doesn't get wiped