How do I map multiple <leader> keys in vim?

Question

I'd like to have a left and right hand leader key. If I want both the default \\ and , to be my leaders I thought it would be as simple as adding nnoremap , \\ or nnoremap , <leader> to my .vimrc . But apparently not. How do I do this?

Answer 1

My <leader> is bound to , and this works for me:

:nmap \ ,

All of my leader mappings are now available using either \\ or , as the leader. I think it's the nnoremap that's tripping you up.

Answer 2

You can map one leader key to the other, as in the accepted answer, but if you're going to use <leader> in the first place, you should make the binding to <leader> itself. That way the binding will still work if you change (or remove) the first leader key.

map , <leader>

Note that this still doesn't quite work like a second leader. If the first leader is unset, the binding will still work, but Vim will also revert to using \\ as a leader, since there is no longer an "official" leader (ie. valid value for the mapleader variable). (This wouldn't be a problem for the OP, but may be for others.)

Answer 3

<leader> is convenient but you can create mappings like ,mm or \\mm without using it. Just duplicate all your <leader>something and remap them with ' and \\ directly:

nnoremap <leader>d "_d

would become

nnoremap ,d "_d
nnoremap \d "_d

Answer 4

How exactly would that work? Vim, when it encounters <leader> it replaces it with the mapped key. Were you to use two (keys for <leader> ), how would it know which one to replace <leader> with?

What you can do however, is use <leader> and <localleader> but that's just two separate leaders, not mapping two keys to one of them.

So, no ... you can't.

You can map your shortcuts explicitly though.