What I want to do:
Inside a file/buffer in vim, especially an unnamed one (for example, created with :enew), sometimes I feel the content I'm writing is worth saving (say, I suddenly want to send it via an email), but don't feel the particular need to save it to a temp file, nor do I trust myself enough to "remember" to save it upon exit.
So I thought, what if I run
autocmd BufLeave * ggvG"+y
in the vim command line once and be free from the fear of losing this content.
But it doesn't work. When I exit vim, the system clipboard reminds intact.
My questions:
does it do anything if we run autocmd on the fly, as opposed to in vimrc?
is there a way to tell vim to "hey, when you exit, run these"?
Thanks a ton!
Two problems:
1) You didn't leave the buffer to go to another buffer (BufLeave); you left Vim (VimLeave).
2) autocmd expects a command, not normal mode keystrokes.
With that in mind,
autocmd VimLeave * normal gg"+yG
Related
If I have this line in my vimrc
au VimLeave %bdelete
Then whenever vim starts it says
--- Auto-Commands ---
Press ENTER or type command to continue
I have that line there to empty the buffers from gvim, because new gvim instances have massive :ls output from previous runs. Notably, gvim doesn't actually produce this prompt.
Obviously I can set this instance up to only occur during gvim startup and not console vim, but I'd like to understand this rather than avoid it. Mostly I'm confused that VimLeave seems to cause things to happen on startup.
TIA
Altreus
The problem is that this is an incomplete :autocmd definition, so Vim attempts to list all VimLeave autocommands defined for the pattern %bdelete. You need to specify the any file pattern to make it work:
au VimLeave * %bdelete
Also, check whether you have % in your 'viminfo' option; that one enables the saving and restoring of the buffer list you're complaining about. The f option of file marks may also result in buffers being restored; you could try :set viminfo+=f0.
New Vim instances don't inherit the buffer list of the previous instance unless you add % to the viminfo option.
Setting that option to a sane value will remove the need for your broken fix. Reading the documentation before adding options to your config will prevent you from similar issues.
See :help 'viminfo'.
I'm used to my editors autosaving files when they lose focus. I recently switched to MacVim, and I can't recreate that behavior. I tried this:
autocmd BufLeave,FocusLost * wall
but if a buffer is unnamed when the window or MacVim loses focus, I get an error like the following:
Error detected while processing BufLeave Auto commands for "*":
E141: No file name for buffer 1
I'm confused, because :wall's documentation says:
Write all changed buffers. Buffers without a file
name or which are readonly are not written.
so I'd expect it to skip unnamed buffers. Is there a better way to do this?
Edit:
I'm pretty sure that the better way to do what I intended by using BufLeave -- saving buffers when I switch between them, so I don't get "No write since last change" -- is to set 'autowriteall'. The question still stands for when MacVim loses focus to other applications (FocusLost).
You don’t care about errors in those circumstances since there is nothing you can reasonably do about them anyway – especially when losing focus. So just swallow them:
autocmd BufLeave,FocusLost * silent! wall
Much simpler than an elaborate dance to figure out where there would be an error in order to avoid it.
I suspect when docs for wall say "without a file name" they may be referring to buffers with buftype=nofile . One way to get what you want would be to have the autocmd have bufdo call a simple function. E.g., some untested code to give the idea:
autocmd BufLeave,FocusLost * bufdo! call WriteFile()
function WriteFile()
if (&buftype=="") && (expand("%:r") > "") && (&readonly==0)
write
endif
endfunction
I think the standard way of getting something like this automatic saving of buffers would be to set the autosave option in Vim.
autocmd BufLeave,FocusLost * bufdo! call WriteFile()
function WriteFile()
if (&buftype=="") && (expand("%:r") > "") && (&readonly==0)
write
endif
endfunction
This method has a side-effect that, you can only open one unamed buffer. If you open the second one, it would automatically be synced to the content of the first unamed buffer.
just put this in .vimrc
set updatetime=1000
autocmd CursorHoldI * silent w
Is there something like a close-window-hook in vim/vimscript, so that I can call a function every time a window is closed?
I want to use it for the following scenario:
I use an extra scratch window to display information about the file, and when I close the file I want the scratch window to be closed automatically so that vim exits.
If you have any ideas how to achieve that without a hook that will be just as fine.
edit:
I know about :qa[ll], but I am lazy and only want to type :q or ZZ.
edit2.71828183:
I accepted the autocommand answer as it was closest to the original question, but found another solution in using a preview window instead of a split window. A preview window is automatically closed when the last "normal" window is closed..
autocommands are amazing! I'm pretty sure that in this case, BufLeave will do the job, but you might want BufWinLeave? Have a look at :help autocmd-events for a full list of events.
The other bit you'll care about is: you can have buffer-local autocommands! (:help autocmd-buflocal)
You can define one for the current buffer using au BufLeave <buffer> .... My best guess is that you could run this in whatever command creates the scratch window. You should be able to cache the scratch window's buffer number in a global variable when you open the scratch window, then your autocommand could just delete that buffer (:help :bdelete).
au BufLeave <buffer> bdelete g:scratch_buffer
call CreateScratchWindow()
function CreateScratchWindow() {
...
let g:scratch_buffer = bufnr("")
}
There's also a function winbufnr, for getting buffer numbers by window. You can use either one - just make sure that the scratch window/buffer is current when you use it! (The "" means current window/buffer).
Add a mapping.
:nnoremap :q :qa
then, if you only want to use :q one day, you can just
:qa<backspace>
and normally, you can just
:q<enter>
and get
:qa<enter>
for free.
Ok, not really a new question, but I found it looking for, what I now know, BufWinLeave. However, the scenario the author is describing is something I have in my vimrc with NerdTree, e.g. when the last buffer is closed, I want vim to close the NerdTree "buffer" and then quit.
autocmd bufenter * if (winnr("$") == 1 && exists("b:NERDTree") && b:NERDTree.isTabTree()) | q | endif
Replace the NERDTree specific stuff with how the scratch buffer is identified.
You can use
:quitall
or
:qall
to close all windows at once.
add a ! if you want to ignore unsaved changes.
:qall!
I want to use gvim to view a log file which is being updated continuously, such that I always see the last updated line, much like tail command in unix. Is it possible?
Open logfile and
:setlocal autoread
There is a plugin (Tail Bundle) on the vim site.
I like it short and without a lot of hacking or external scripts.
You can run this oneliner from ex (whithin vim) when needed (or put each command in vimrc, for when log-files are opened.)
:set autoread | au CursorHold * checktime | call feedkeys("lh")
and additionally you can :set syntax=logtalk to color the log
(if you would want to jump (nearly) to the end of the file, just use "G" instead of "lh" with feedkeys)
Explanation:
autoread: reads the file when changed from the outside (but it doesnt work on its own, there is no internal timer or something like that. It will only read the file when vim does an action, like a command in ex :!
CursorHold * checktime: when the cursor isn't moved by the user for the time specified in updatetime (which is 4000 miliseconds by default) checktime is executed, which checks for changes from outside the file
call feedkeys("lh"): the cursor is moved once, right and back left. and then nothing happens (... which means, that CursorHold is triggered, which means we have a loop)
To stop the scrolling when using call feedkeys("G"), execute :set noautoread - now vim will tell, that the file was change ans ask if one wants to read the changes or not)
*from this answer (refering to an answer by PhanHaiQuang and a comment by flukus)
Or a less elegant solution on a vim 7.x would be just do :e! whenever you need the update .
My usage-scenario may seem a bit unusual, but here it is: When using vim (it's one of about 4 different editors I use regularly), I use it in two different situations. The first is via the GUI, in which I'll have multiple buffers and have some settings different than when I use it from the command-line (by testing "if has('gui_running')"). The other is when I need to do something short-and-quick, from the command-line, such as make a small change to a dot-file or other type of config.
What I would like to do, is have sessions enabled for the GUI, but have any command-line invocations ignore them. That is, I don't want to bring up the full existing session on a CL invocation, nor do I want it (and whatever buffer/file it involved) to alter the session that the GUI is using. As I'm fairly new to the post-vi-functionality of vim, I'm not really sure how to pull this off.
do your session magic in your .gvimrc and everything else in your .vimrc. The GUI will source both, but the CL version will only source the .vimrc.
The session magic is to set up autocommands to write your session to a file on exit, and reload it by sourcing the file upon entrance.
au VimLeave * mksession ~/.gvimsession
au VimEnter * source ~/.gvimsession
You may want to add a ! to mksession so that you won't get an override error message upon exiting everytime.
au VimLeave * mksession! ~/.gvimsession
au VimEnter * source ~/.gvimsession