| *usr_08.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2006 Jul 18 |
| |
| VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar |
| |
| Splitting windows |
| |
| |
| Display two different files above each other. Or view two locations in the |
| file at the same time. See the difference between two files by putting them |
| side by side. All this is possible with split windows. |
| |
| |08.1| Split a window |
| |08.2| Split a window on another file |
| |08.3| Window size |
| |08.4| Vertical splits |
| |08.5| Moving windows |
| |08.6| Commands for all windows |
| |08.7| Viewing differences with vimdiff |
| |08.8| Various |
| |08.9| Tab pages |
| |
| Next chapter: |usr_09.txt| Using the GUI |
| Previous chapter: |usr_07.txt| Editing more than one file |
| Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt| |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.1* Split a window |
| |
| The easiest way to open a new window is to use the following command: > |
| |
| :split |
| |
| This command splits the screen into two windows and leaves the cursor in the |
| top one: |
| |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |/* file one.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |one.c=============================| |
| |/* file one.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |one.c=============================| |
| | | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |
| What you see here is two windows on the same file. The line with "====" is |
| that status line. It displays information about the window above it. (In |
| practice the status line will be in reverse video.) |
| The two windows allow you to view two parts of the same file. For example, |
| you could make the top window show the variable declarations of a program, and |
| the bottom one the code that uses these variables. |
| |
| The CTRL-W w command can be used to jump between the windows. If you are in |
| the top window, CTRL-W w jumps to the window below it. If you are in the |
| bottom window it will jump to the first window. (CTRL-W CTRL-W does the same |
| thing, in case you let go of the CTRL key a bit later.) |
| |
| |
| CLOSE THE WINDOW |
| |
| To close a window, use the command: > |
| |
| :close |
| |
| Actually, any command that quits editing a file works, like ":quit" and "ZZ". |
| But ":close" prevents you from accidentally exiting Vim when you close the |
| last window. |
| |
| |
| CLOSING ALL OTHER WINDOWS |
| |
| If you have opened a whole bunch of windows, but now want to concentrate on |
| one of them, this command will be useful: > |
| |
| :only |
| |
| This closes all windows, except for the current one. If any of the other |
| windows has changes, you will get an error message and that window won't be |
| closed. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.2* Split a window on another file |
| |
| The following command opens a second window and starts editing the given file: |
| > |
| :split two.c |
| |
| If you were editing one.c, then the result looks like this: |
| |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |/* file two.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |two.c=============================| |
| |/* file one.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |one.c=============================| |
| | | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |
| To open a window on a new, empty file, use this: > |
| |
| :new |
| |
| You can repeat the ":split" and ":new" commands to create as many windows as |
| you like. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.3* Window size |
| |
| The ":split" command can take a number argument. If specified, this will be |
| the height of the new window. For example, the following opens a new window |
| three lines high and starts editing the file alpha.c: > |
| |
| :3split alpha.c |
| |
| For existing windows you can change the size in several ways. When you have a |
| working mouse, it is easy: Move the mouse pointer to the status line that |
| separates two windows, and drag it up or down. |
| |
| To increase the size of a window: > |
| |
| CTRL-W + |
| |
| To decrease it: > |
| |
| CTRL-W - |
| |
| Both of these commands take a count and increase or decrease the window size |
| by that many lines. Thus "4 CTRL-W +" make the window four lines higher. |
| |
| To set the window height to a specified number of lines: > |
| |
| {height}CTRL-W _ |
| |
| That's: a number {height}, CTRL-W and then an underscore (the - key with Shift |
| on English-US keyboards). |
| To make a window as high as it can be, use the CTRL-W _ command without a |
| count. |
| |
| |
| USING THE MOUSE |
| |
| In Vim you can do many things very quickly from the keyboard. Unfortunately, |
| the window resizing commands require quite a bit of typing. In this case, |
| using the mouse is faster. Position the mouse pointer on a status line. Now |
| press the left mouse button and drag. The status line will move, thus making |
| the window on one side higher and the other smaller. |
| |
| |
| OPTIONS |
| |
| The 'winheight' option can be set to a minimal desired height of a window and |
| 'winminheight' to a hard minimum height. |
| Likewise, there is 'winwidth' for the minimal desired width and |
| 'winminwidth' for the hard minimum width. |
| The 'equalalways' option, when set, makes Vim equalize the windows sizes |
| when a window is closed or opened. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.4* Vertical splits |
| |
| The ":split" command creates the new window above the current one. To make |
| the window appear at the left side, use: > |
| |
| :vsplit |
| |
| or: > |
| :vsplit two.c |
| |
| The result looks something like this: |
| |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| |/* file two.c */ |/* file one.c */ | |
| |~ |~ | |
| |~ |~ | |
| |~ |~ | |
| |two.c===============one.c=============| |
| | | |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| |
| Actually, the | lines in the middle will be in reverse video. This is called |
| the vertical separator. It separates the two windows left and right of it. |
| |
| There is also the ":vnew" command, to open a vertically split window on a new, |
| empty file. Another way to do this: > |
| |
| :vertical new |
| |
| The ":vertical" command can be inserted before another command that splits a |
| window. This will cause that command to split the window vertically instead |
| of horizontally. (If the command doesn't split a window, it works |
| unmodified.) |
| |
| |
| MOVING BETWEEN WINDOWS |
| |
| Since you can split windows horizontally and vertically as much as you like, |
| you can create almost any layout of windows. Then you can use these commands |
| to move between them: |
| |
| CTRL-W h move to the window on the left |
| CTRL-W j move to the window below |
| CTRL-W k move to the window above |
| CTRL-W l move to the window on the right |
| |
| CTRL-W t move to the TOP window |
| CTRL-W b move to the BOTTOM window |
| |
| You will notice the same letters as used for moving the cursor. And the |
| cursor keys can also be used, if you like. |
| More commands to move to other windows: |Q_wi|. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.5* Moving windows |
| |
| You have split a few windows, but now they are in the wrong place. Then you |
| need a command to move the window somewhere else. For example, you have three |
| windows like this: |
| |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |/* file two.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |two.c=============================| |
| |/* file three.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |three.c===========================| |
| |/* file one.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |one.c=============================| |
| | | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |
| Clearly the last one should be at the top. Go to that window (using CTRL-W w) |
| and the type this command: > |
| |
| CTRL-W K |
| |
| This uses the uppercase letter K. What happens is that the window is moved to |
| the very top. You will notice that K is again used for moving upwards. |
| When you have vertical splits, CTRL-W K will move the current window to the |
| top and make it occupy the full width of the Vim window. If this is your |
| layout: |
| |
| +-------------------------------------------+ |
| |/* two.c */ |/* three.c */ |/* one.c */ | |
| |~ |~ |~ | |
| |~ |~ |~ | |
| |~ |~ |~ | |
| |~ |~ |~ | |
| |~ |~ |~ | |
| |two.c=========three.c=========one.c========| |
| | | |
| +-------------------------------------------+ |
| |
| Then using CTRL-W K in the middle window (three.c) will result in: |
| |
| +-------------------------------------------+ |
| |/* three.c */ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |three.c====================================| |
| |/* two.c */ |/* one.c */ | |
| |~ |~ | |
| |two.c==================one.c===============| |
| | | |
| +-------------------------------------------+ |
| |
| The other three similar commands (you can probably guess these now): |
| |
| CTRL-W H move window to the far left |
| CTRL-W J move window to the bottom |
| CTRL-W L move window to the far right |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.6* Commands for all windows |
| |
| When you have several windows open and you want to quit Vim, you can close |
| each window separately. A quicker way is using this command: > |
| |
| :qall |
| |
| This stands for "quit all". If any of the windows contain changes, Vim will |
| not exit. The cursor will automatically be positioned in a window with |
| changes. You can then either use ":write" to save the changes, or ":quit!" to |
| throw them away. |
| |
| If you know there are windows with changes, and you want to save all these |
| changes, use this command: > |
| |
| :wall |
| |
| This stands for "write all". But actually, it only writes files with |
| changes. Vim knows it doesn't make sense to write files that were not |
| changed. |
| And then there is the combination of ":qall" and ":wall": the "write and |
| quit all" command: > |
| |
| :wqall |
| |
| This writes all modified files and quits Vim. |
| Finally, there is a command that quits Vim and throws away all changes: > |
| |
| :qall! |
| |
| Be careful, there is no way to undo this command! |
| |
| |
| OPENING A WINDOW FOR ALL ARGUMENTS |
| |
| To make Vim open a window for each file, start it with the "-o" argument: > |
| |
| vim -o one.txt two.txt three.txt |
| |
| This results in: |
| |
| +-------------------------------+ |
| |file one.txt | |
| |~ | |
| |one.txt========================| |
| |file two.txt | |
| |~ | |
| |two.txt========================| |
| |file three.txt | |
| |~ | |
| |three.txt======================| |
| | | |
| +-------------------------------+ |
| |
| The "-O" argument is used to get vertically split windows. |
| When Vim is already running, the ":all" command opens a window for each |
| file in the argument list. ":vertical all" does it with vertical splits. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.7* Viewing differences with vimdiff |
| |
| There is a special way to start Vim, which shows the differences between two |
| files. Let's take a file "main.c" and insert a few characters in one line. |
| Write this file with the 'backup' option set, so that the backup file |
| "main.c~" will contain the previous version of the file. |
| Type this command in a shell (not in Vim): > |
| |
| vimdiff main.c~ main.c |
| |
| Vim will start, with two windows side by side. You will only see the line |
| in which you added characters, and a few lines above and below it. |
| |
| VV VV |
| +-----------------------------------------+ |
| |+ +--123 lines: /* a|+ +--123 lines: /* a| <- fold |
| | text | text | |
| | text | text | |
| | text | text | |
| | text | changed text | <- changed line |
| | text | text | |
| | text | ------------------| <- deleted line |
| | text | text | |
| | text | text | |
| | text | text | |
| |+ +--432 lines: text|+ +--432 lines: text| <- fold |
| | ~ | ~ | |
| | ~ | ~ | |
| |main.c~==============main.c==============| |
| | | |
| +-----------------------------------------+ |
| |
| (This picture doesn't show the highlighting, use the vimdiff command for a |
| better look.) |
| |
| The lines that were not modified have been collapsed into one line. This is |
| called a closed fold. They are indicated in the picture with "<- fold". Thus |
| the single fold line at the top stands for 123 text lines. These lines are |
| equal in both files. |
| The line marked with "<- changed line" is highlighted, and the inserted |
| text is displayed with another color. This clearly shows what the difference |
| is between the two files. |
| The line that was deleted is displayed with "---" in the main.c window. |
| See the "<- deleted line" marker in the picture. These characters are not |
| really there. They just fill up main.c, so that it displays the same number |
| of lines as the other window. |
| |
| |
| THE FOLD COLUMN |
| |
| Each window has a column on the left with a slightly different background. In |
| the picture above these are indicated with "VV". You notice there is a plus |
| character there, in front of each closed fold. Move the mouse pointer to that |
| plus and click the left button. The fold will open, and you can see the text |
| that it contains. |
| The fold column contains a minus sign for an open fold. If you click on |
| this -, the fold will close. |
| Obviously, this only works when you have a working mouse. You can also use |
| "zo" to open a fold and "zc" to close it. |
| |
| |
| DIFFING IN VIM |
| |
| Another way to start in diff mode can be done from inside Vim. Edit the |
| "main.c" file, then make a split and show the differences: > |
| |
| :edit main.c |
| :vertical diffsplit main.c~ |
| |
| The ":vertical" command is used to make the window split vertically. If you |
| omit this, you will get a horizontal split. |
| |
| If you have a patch or diff file, you can use the third way to start diff |
| mode. First edit the file to which the patch applies. Then tell Vim the name |
| of the patch file: > |
| |
| :edit main.c |
| :vertical diffpatch main.c.diff |
| |
| WARNING: The patch file must contain only one patch, for the file you are |
| editing. Otherwise you will get a lot of error messages, and some files might |
| be patched unexpectedly. |
| The patching will only be done to the copy of the file in Vim. The file on |
| your harddisk will remain unmodified (until you decide to write the file). |
| |
| |
| SCROLL BINDING |
| |
| When the files have more changes, you can scroll in the usual way. Vim will |
| try to keep both the windows start at the same position, so you can easily see |
| the differences side by side. |
| When you don't want this for a moment, use this command: > |
| |
| :set noscrollbind |
| |
| |
| JUMPING TO CHANGES |
| |
| When you have disabled folding in some way, it may be difficult to find the |
| changes. Use this command to jump forward to the next change: > |
| |
| ]c |
| |
| To go the other way use: > |
| |
| [c |
| |
| Prepended a count to jump further away. |
| |
| |
| REMOVING CHANGES |
| |
| You can move text from one window to the other. This either removes |
| differences or adds new ones. Vim doesn't keep the highlighting updated in |
| all situations. To update it use this command: > |
| |
| :diffupdate |
| |
| To remove a difference, you can move the text in a highlighted block from one |
| window to another. Take the "main.c" and "main.c~" example above. Move the |
| cursor to the left window, on the line that was deleted in the other window. |
| Now type this command: > |
| |
| dp |
| |
| The change will be removed by putting the text of the current window in the |
| other window. "dp" stands for "diff put". |
| You can also do it the other way around. Move the cursor to the right |
| window, to the line where "changed" was inserted. Now type this command: > |
| |
| do |
| |
| The change will now be removed by getting the text from the other window. |
| Since there are no changes left now, Vim puts all text in a closed fold. |
| "do" stands for "diff obtain". "dg" would have been better, but that already |
| has a different meaning ("dgg" deletes from the cursor until the first line). |
| |
| For details about diff mode, see |vimdiff|. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.8* Various |
| |
| The 'laststatus' option can be used to specify when the last window has a |
| statusline: |
| |
| 0 never |
| 1 only when there are split windows (the default) |
| 2 always |
| |
| Many commands that edit another file have a variant that splits the window. |
| For Command-line commands this is done by prepending an "s". For example: |
| ":tag" jumps to a tag, ":stag" splits the window and jumps to a |
| tag. |
| For Normal mode commands a CTRL-W is prepended. CTRL-^ jumps to the |
| alternate file, CTRL-W CTRL-^ splits the window and edits the alternate file. |
| |
| The 'splitbelow' option can be set to make a new window appear below the |
| current window. The 'splitright' option can be set to make a vertically split |
| window appear right of the current window. |
| |
| When splitting a window you can prepend a modifier command to tell where the |
| window is to appear: |
| |
| :leftabove {cmd} left or above the current window |
| :aboveleft {cmd} idem |
| :rightbelow {cmd} right or below the current window |
| :belowright {cmd} idem |
| :topleft {cmd} at the top or left of the Vim window |
| :botright {cmd} at the bottom or right of the Vim window |
| |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| *08.9* Tab pages |
| |
| You will have noticed that windows never overlap. That means you quickly run |
| out of screen space. The solution for this is called Tab pages. |
| |
| Assume you are editing "thisfile". To create a new tab page use this command: > |
| |
| :tabedit thatfile |
| |
| This will edit the file "thatfile" in a window that occupies the whole Vim |
| window. And you will notice a bar at the top with the two file names: |
| |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| | thisfile | /thatfile/ __________X| (thatfile is bold) |
| |/* thatfile */ | |
| |that | |
| |that | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| | | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |
| You now have two tab pages. The first one has a window for "thisfile" and the |
| second one a window for "thatfile". It's like two pages that are on top of |
| eachother, with a tab sticking out of each page showing the file name. |
| |
| Now use the mouse to click on "thisfile" in the top line. The result is |
| |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| | /thisfile/ | thatfile __________X| (thisfile is bold) |
| |/* thisfile */ | |
| |this | |
| |this | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| | | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |
| Thus you can switch between tab pages by clicking on the label in the top |
| line. If you don't have a mouse or don't want to use it, you can use the "gt" |
| command. Mnemonic: Goto Tab. |
| |
| Now let's create another tab page with the command: > |
| |
| :tab split |
| |
| This makes a new tab page with one window that is editing the same buffer as |
| the window we were in: |
| |
| +-------------------------------------+ |
| | thisfile | /thisfile/ | thatfile __X| (thisfile is bold) |
| |/* thisfile */ | |
| |this | |
| |this | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| |~ | |
| | | |
| +-------------------------------------+ |
| |
| You can put ":tab" before any Ex command that opens a window. The window will |
| be opened in a new tab page. Another example: > |
| |
| :tab help gt |
| |
| Will show the help text for "gt" in a new tab page. |
| |
| A few more things you can do with tab pages: |
| |
| - click with the mouse in the space after the last label |
| The next tab page will be selected, like with "gt". |
| |
| - click with the mouse on the "X" in the top right corner |
| The current tab page will be closed. Unless there are unsaved |
| changes in the current tab page. |
| |
| - double click with the mouse in the top line |
| A new tab page will be created. |
| |
| - the "tabonly" command |
| Closes all tab pages except the current one. Unless there are unsaved |
| changes in other tab pages. |
| |
| For more information about tab pages see |tab-page|. |
| |
| ============================================================================== |
| |
| Next chapter: |usr_09.txt| Using the GUI |
| |
| Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: |