However, that will just populate the command line. To force the command to execute without having to hit Enter, you need to embed a CR (carriage return). On Linux, you do this with Ctrl+V Ctrl+M. On Windows, the default is that Ctrl+V is paste, and you have to use Ctrl+Q instead: map :!p4 edit %Ctrl+Q Ctrl+M Which will look like: map :!p4 edit %^M