I love VIM and use the Kate VIM mode. This mode _emulates_ VIM rather than incorporating native VIM. I now see that it is in fact possible to incorporate native VIM: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/netbeans.html Might it be wise to move to this approach rather than trying to copy VIM in Kate?
In theory, perhaps. But as the guys who wrote KVim found out, it's not easy at all. http://web.archive.org/web/20100423002016/http://www.yzis.org/wiki/index.php/History I'm closing this for now, but if new information comes up that indicates that it is indeed possible to embed Vim in a nice way, please let me know! :-)
Thank you for the explanation, Erlend. How about actually embedding a Konsole window right there in Kate with VIM opened to a temp file of the edited file, and cp the temp file to the original on ":w". You could even do a Konsole session with the Kate colours and fonts. I know, easier said than programmed!