Hi J,

First, let me say that ViEmu is still working out wonderfully.

I would like to discuss one set of behaviors that is the edit/command mode state.

I still find my self getting all confused about which state I'm in. I'm not sure what you can do about it, but I thought that I'd run them by you. I'll go through the cases with a "pre:" tag to indicate what state I'm in, and then a "do:" tag to show what I've done. "post:" is the state I'm in after I've done it, and finally either a "expect" or "desire" behavior.

pre: edit in an existing file
do: open another (already opened) file by clicking on the tab bar
post: edit in second file
expect: whatever mode I left this second file
Likewise, if I am in command mode when going to another file, I am still in command mode, regardless of how I left that file

pre: edit in an existing file
do: open another file by clicking on it in the solution explorer
post: edit in new file
expect: command mode in new file since I just opened it.

This case can be expanded to:
pre: whatever
do: open a new or existing file from solution explorer
expect: always in command mode.

pre: edit in an existing file
do: use a snippet
post: edit
desire: in command mode since the next that you do after using a snippet
is always move somewhere.
Ok, that previous one is pretty lazy, but I figure why not bring it up?

pre: edit in an existing file
do: launch debugger
post: edit in an existing file
desire: always in command mode until explicitly told to go into insert.
Then once debugging has ended, go back to whatever the initial state was

I think that, (with the exception of the snippet one,) if it were possible to introduce the state of the edit/command mode for each open file, then that would just do it. With the state only being managed for the lifetime of this IDE session. (Meaning, no need to preserve this state across shutting down and restarting the IDE.) All files would be opened in command mode. The debug one might be more tricky, but I'd gladly trade that bit for the rest.

Anyway, I've no idea if this is possible technically or from a timeline standpoint, or if others would agree, but I wanted your thoughts.