I've chosen F1 and F2, because I never use those keys for what they are intended. I use :help for a command reference, not for a tutorial style thing. So, use some discretion. Also, the write command could just as easily have been a :write!, but I decided against that in the case of files that weren't checked out. You should check them out, first, and they should be writable. map :write %:!ci -l %:edit! map :!co -l %:edit! New RCS files work just fine with the first mapping. There's a good menu-driven rcs client for graphical vim, but I hate menus and graphical interfaces.