Why is my "repeat last action" (dot) operator is not working?

Question

I'm a vim user moving to emacs evil.

I just added this line to my .init.el file and it broke my dot functionality.

(define-key evil-insert-state-map (kbd "TAB") 'evil-force-normal-state)

Why? I'm not even sure what to search for to start debugging this.

Here's my whole init.el file:

(require 'package)

(add-to-list 'package-archives '("org" . "http://orgmode.org/elpa/"))
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/"))
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa-stable" . "http://stable.melpa.org/packages/"))

(setq package-enable-at-startup nil)
(package-initialize)

(global-linum-mode 1)

(require 'evil)
(evil-mode t)


;;;; Keymappings                                                                  
(with-eval-after-load 'evil-maps
  (define-key evil-motion-state-map (kbd ":") 'evil-repeat-find-char)
  (define-key evil-motion-state-map (kbd ";") 'evil-ex))
  (define-key evil-insert-state-map (kbd "TAB") 'evil-force-normal-state)) 

If I don't comment out that line, the . in normal mode just deletes the current line as if I'm doing a dd. I tried adding stuff to the end of a line then repeating it on a few lines with .. All I got was fewer lines!

Answer 1

Short version

Switch your code to:

(define-key evil-insert-state-map (kbd "TAB") 'evil-normal-state)

Explanatory version

I presume that you're trying to use the TAB key as a substitute for the ESC key because the latter is harder to reach.

As an editorial aside, let me suggest you try remapping the ESC key to the CAPS LOCK key at the system level, as many Emacs packages use TAB for core functionality.

Back to the narrow issue. In insert state, ESC is bound by default to evil-normal-state, not evil-force-normal-state (which is its binding in normal state). That's an important point because the latter aborts the repeater. Here's the code that shows you:

(evil-define-command evil-force-normal-state ()
  "Switch to normal state without recording current command."
  :repeat abort             ;; here's the culprit
  :suppress-operator t
  (evil-normal-state))

(NB: you can check out the source code with C-h f evil-force-normal-state and follow the links.)