Vim insert strange characters when trying to fix Alt key

Question

I found the workaround for mapping Alt key on gnome-terminal in this topic. After editing the vimrc file, my Vim now recognizes Alt-j as ê (which is a non-english character), how can I fix it?

Thanks

Answer 1

As explained in the referenced topic, for Vim, Alt + character combinations are represented by ASCII characters with the 8th bit set, which is identical to certain special characters (such as ê). As long as you don't need to type those characters (e.g. because you write in French :-), you can ignore this curiosity; just write your mapping with either <A-j> or the literal ê notation (but after any :set encoding=... in your .vimrc, because that affects how these are interpreted).