I'm fairly fluent with VIM, but find myself having to use GUI programs (in OS X) and their awkward editing modes more and more frequently for my work. I know that OS X lets you use basic emacs keybindings in most textfields (browser window/bar, etc.). I'm wondering if it's possible to switch the emacs keybindings to vim keybindings for those GUI-level input areas.

I understand that it might be possible to do that key-by-key in the keyboard layout preference pane. But that approach seems limited, cumbersome, and not very elegant. I'm thinking--and I may well be wrong here--that since OS X already ships with VIM installed, there should be a way to change a preference file deep in the system that maps VIM instead of emacs keybindings to the GUI text/input areas.

Does anyone know if this is

a) theoretically possible, or if there's something about how OS X maps emacs keybindings to its GUI interface that would make this impossible; and

b) how/where that could be done?