Dear Bart, thank you for the hint. Indeed, I found an edit-command-line module in zshcontrib. And yes, it is loaded by oh-my-zsh. So I could fix my theme script. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to set the MODE variable the way you mentioned. If anybody wants to tell me, you can find the script at    https://github.com/tannhuber/oh-my-zsh/blob/master/themes/budspencer.zsh-theme But don't waste your time. Everything is working well, now. Thank you Joseph Bart Schaefer schrieb am 3:50 Donnerstag, 15.Mai 2014: On May 14,  9:18pm, Sepp Tannhuber wrote: } Subject: vi-mode: editor function } } I have written a theme for the oh-my-zsh prompt from robbyrussel } because I was sometimes confused about the different vi modes. My } prompt shows, at a glance, which vi mode is active, similar to the vim } airline plugin. [...] } Unfortunately I could not find something like vi-editor it in the } zshzle manual. Has anybody an idea what I can use instead? Or what is } the default vicmd for [v]? There is no default binding for v in vicmd mode, so you are encountering something installed for you by oh-my-zsh.  Most likely it is the user- contributed edit-command-line widget (man zshcontrib). If oh-my-zsh hasn't already pre-empted the zle-line-init, zle-line-finish, and zle-keymap-select widgets, you might find it more effective to set the MODE variable with those, rather than trying to override all the individual widgets that might change mode.