HOWTO - Mutt using VIM with accented characters

How to use Mutt as your mailer and VIM as your editor and have them play nice with accented charcters.

1. Mutt
   • .muttrc:

     # This next line for those people who send you high characters but
     # claim that they're using ascii
     charset-hook us-ascii iso-8859-1
     set send_charset="us-ascii:iso-8859-1"

   • .bashrc : See Also this thing on locales.

     export LANG=
     export LC_CTYPE=en_US

     Note that setting LANG to en_US set the charset for VIM and for the index view of mutt, but the pager still showed me \123 instead of the right character.

   • VIM - Turn on Dead Keys

     Thanks to Claudio Fliener for the code that started this one.

     Note:You should see accented characters below in the 2nd column, or you have a problem with your browser. Save the source of this file and work from that, don't just copy and paste from the browser.

     • .vimrc:

       nm <F6> :call DeadKeys()<CR>
       nm <F7> :call DeadKeysOff()<CR>
       function! DeadKeys()
           :echo "Dead Keys: On"
           let g:DeadKeysOn=1
           " map dead keys
           :imap "a    ä
           :imap "A    Ä
           :imap "e    ë
           :imap "E    Ë
           :imap "i    ï
           :imap "I    Ï
           :imap "o    ö
           :imap "O    Ö
           :imap "u    ü
           :imap "U    Ü
           :imap "y    ÿ
           :imap "<space>    ""<bs>
           :imap ""    ""<bs>
       
           :imap 'a    á
           :imap 'A    Á
           :imap 'e    é
           :imap 'E    É
           :imap 'i    í
           :imap 'I    Í
           :imap 'o    ó
           :imap 'O    Ó
           :imap 'u    ú
           :imap 'U    Ú
           :imap 'y    ý
           :imap ''    ''<bs>
           :imap '<space>    ''<bs>
       
           :imap 'c    ç
           :imap 'C    Ç
       
           :imap `a    à
           :imap `A    À
           :imap `e    è
           :imap `E    È
           :imap `i    ì
           :imap `I    Ì
           :imap `o    ò
           :imap `O    Ò
           :imap `u    ù
           :imap `U    Ù
           :imap ``    ``<bs>
           :imap `<space>    ``<bs>
       
           :imap ^a    â
           :imap ^A    Â
           :imap ^e    ê
           :imap ^E    Ê
           :imap ^i    î
           :imap ^I    Î
           :imap ^o    ô
           :imap ^O    Ô
           :imap ^u    û
           :imap ^U    Û
           :imap ^y    xxxx
           :iunmap ^y
           :imap ^^    ^^<bs>
           :imap ^<space>    ^^<bs>
       
           :imap ~n    ñ
           :imap ~N    Ñ
           :imap ~~    ~~<bs>
           :imap ~<space>    ~~<bs>
       endfunction " deadkeys()
       
       function! DeadKeysOff()
           " Make sure turning them off without having turned them on 
           " does nothing bad.
           if !exists("g:DeadKeysOn") || !g:DeadKeysOn
               :echo "Dead Keys not on."
               return
           endif
       
           :echo "Dead Keys: Off"
           let g:DeadKeysOn=0
           :iunmap "a
           :iunmap "A
           :iunmap "e
           :iunmap "E
           :iunmap "i
           :iunmap "I
           :iunmap "o
           :iunmap "O
           :iunmap "u
           :iunmap "U
           :iunmap "y
           :iunmap ""
           :iunmap "<space>
       
           :iunmap 'a
           :iunmap 'A
           :iunmap 'e
           :iunmap 'E
           :iunmap 'i
           :iunmap 'I
           :iunmap 'o
           :iunmap 'O
           :iunmap 'u
           :iunmap 'U
           :iunmap 'y
           :iunmap '<space>
           :iunmap ''
       
           :iunmap 'c
           :iunmap 'C
       
           :iunmap `a
           :iunmap `A
           :iunmap `e
           :iunmap `E
           :iunmap `i
           :iunmap `I
           :iunmap `o
           :iunmap `O
           :iunmap `u
           :iunmap `U
           :iunmap `<space>
           :iunmap ``
       
           :iunmap ^a
           :iunmap ^A
           :iunmap ^e
           :iunmap ^E
           :iunmap ^i
           :iunmap ^I
           :iunmap ^o
           :iunmap ^O
           :iunmap ^u
           :iunmap ^U
           ":iunmap ^y
           :iunmap ^^
           :iunmap ^<space>
       
           :iunmap ~n
           :iunmap ~N
           :iunmap ~~
           :iunmap ~<space>
       
       endfunction