Assume the cursor is at horizontal position 42 of a line. Then you go into normal mode and execute the command
:mak
which will call make. After make is executed you return to normal mode but your cursor is positioned at horizontal position 0 (assuming that no whitespace is contained at the beginning of the line) of the same line.
Is it possible to tell vim that it should return to the same horizontal position of the same line as before executing make?
I played with settings like nostartofline without luck. Any suggestions?
This is because of the following behavior, documented under :help :make:
7. If [!] is not given the first error is jumped to.
If you have no errors, Vim still somehow "jumps" to the first non-blank character in the current line (which may be a bug or an inconsequential side effect of the implementation).
If you want to keep the current cursor position, just use :make!.
Related
I'm using (a modified version) of the solution proposed in http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/12/vi-and-vim-autocommand-3-steps-to-add-custom-header-to-your-file/ to create and update headers for my source codes automatically.
As explained in the above-mentioned page, upon invoking a write command in vim, the following sequence of commands are executed:
A mark is set at the current position of the file.
The "Last Modified" filed is updated. This moves the cursor to the beginning of the file (where the search-and-replace takes places).
The cursor is returned to previously marked position.
This is fine, but there is a slightly annoying issue: Suppose we're editing a line close to the bottom of the window. If at that point we save the file, because of the cursor moves (for updating the header) the line we were editing jumps so that it is positioned in the middle of the window.
To my understanding 'a moves the cursor to the place marked by mark a and adjusts the window contents such that the current line appears in the middle of the window. I was wondering if there is a way to make "marks" remember also the exact relative position of the marked line in the window and maintain this position when jumping back to the mark?
It's in the docs: Restoring the cursor position.
:map <F2> msHmt…'tzt`s
(I skipped irrelevant parts with ellipsis).
ms store cursor position in the 's' mark
H go to the first line in the window
mt store this position in the 't' mark
Breaking up restoring the position:
't go to the line previously at the top of the window
zt scroll to move this line to the top of the window
`s jump to the original position of the cursor
The mark itself only stores the position itself; the view (what's shown in the current window) isn't part of that.
What you're looking for is the pair of winsaveview() and winrestview() functions. These store the cursor position (like marks, but without adapting automatically to changes in the buffer; something that you probably won't need for the updating of headers), and the details of what is currently shown in the window. Use of these is recommended over marks; in custom mappings or commands it also has the benefit of not clobbering a mark.
If you use :substitute to update the header, you also may change the current search pattern (unless using a :function), and the search history. Undoing all of that is hard; I know because I've written such a plugin (AutoAdapt plugin) myself. You may want to have a look at its implementation for further tips (or start using it altogether). (The plugin page also has links to various alternative plugins.)
is it possible in vim to select all lines in the current file, but leave the position where my cursor is unchanged?
Let's say I am currently at line 500 (of 3000) and want to quickly select everything (not yank), as my selection is simply set up to show whitespace characters. Can this be done without leaving my current line?
To achieve exactly what you like, you can press the following:
ggVG<Esc><Ctrl-O><Ctrl-O>
gg moves to the beginning of the file
V starts visual line mode
G moves to the and of the file (now you have selected the whole
file)
<Esc> leaves visual mode
<Ctrl-O> moves your cursor back to the prevois location (first to the beginning of the file, then the second time to your last position before pressing gg)
And if you like to select only the visible lines in you window (to not scroll away). You can use HVL instead of ggVG (H moves to the top of your window and L to the bottom).
You also could show whitespaces without using visual selection with something like this in your .vimrc:
set list listchars=tab:»·,trail:·,nbsp:·
This helps me to detect trailing whitespaces, and mixed (spaces/tabs) indentation.
usually pressing
ggVG
in normal mode will select all the lines, but it will leave your cursor at the last line of the file.
If you wants to highlights the whitespace characters then you can highlight this by using the below command in command mode (this white color chosen is for dark theme)
: hi ExtraWhitespace ctermbg=White guibg=White
Depending on what you are trying to achieve you can use something like :
%cmd
To apply the command to the whole file.
For example, %y will yank the whole file, %=will format the whole file, without moving your cursor. It does not really work if you do something like %d...
It is not a real selection though but rather a way to apply a command on the whole file.
To go further you can use something like
%norm Atest
To add 'test' at the end of each line. (Actually this is a bad example, because this command will move to the last line...)
It is not possible to have the cursor inside a visual selection. This caused by that, vim defines visual selection through two marks. As soon as you move the cursor one of the marks gets updated. Basically this means one of the marks is always lays where the cursor is(at least when using "v" to select). You cannot have the border in the middle of the region that the border defines :)
When I scroll down a page the relative numbering is no longer based upon the cursor position.
Instead the line position relative to the top of the screen is displayed.
Sometimes I would like to delete or yank 200 lines and I dont want to have to do the subtraction and addition to figure out how many lines down my text is.
How can I show relative line numbers to the cursor even when scrolling?
I think what you want is, you scroll with mouse, and expect that vim keeps the cursor in original place. E.g. your cursor is at line 5, and you scroll down 5000 lines, you expect your cursor is still at line 5. That is, the cursor is out of the window.
AFAIK, the cursor won't go out of the window. That means, if you keep scrolling down, and the cursor line will be the top line of your current window. and the rnu are gonna re-calculated by the cursor line.
May be you could just explain what do you want to do. the cases in your question could be done by 200dd or 200Y but I guess it is not as simple as that.
You may want to find out the ending line by reading/scanning your text lines, and pick the line number (rnu), and do a xxxdd if this was the case. Here you should use normal line number. e.g. your cursor was at line 5, and you scroll down a lot, find the line you want to delete till from line 5. you could do :5,.d vim will delete from line 5 to your current line.
Or you can do 5, 23452d if you find out the lines between 5 and 23452 need to be removed.
If you can search your ending line by /pattern search, vim can do :.,/foo/d this will delete from current line till the next line, which matches foo.
You can still press V enter line-wise visual mode, and moving down by vim-motions. when it reaches the point you want to remove/yand press Y or d
You can take a look this Question/answer:
VIM to delete a range of lines into a register
At the end, I suggest you not using mouse in vim.
This is probably because the cursor moves down a page when you scroll down a page. In vim, the cursor is always on the screen. If you're scrolling down with, say, the mouse wheel, the cursor will just get "stuck" on the top line (modulo scrolloff) and stay there as you continue to scroll down.
Perhaps use ShiftV to start a line-based visual selection before scrolling, then use d or y on the selection?
I can confirm that the desired feature is available in Visual Studio Code (VSC) with the Vim extension installed. This is because VSC does not function like Vim by default and holds the cursor in place like other text editors do. This feature not only makes VSC bearable but proves more useful than vanilla Vim when coding large blocks of code also.
Additionally, VSC also allows for easy and language agnostic comment/uncomment toggling with <Ctrl> + / which is also very useful when used together with the above feature.
When I switch to command mode in Vim, the cursor seems to move one character back when it's at the end of or on a word, and when I go to the end-of-line with $, it does not go to the actual end of line but one character before the end of the last word, and l ("el") does not move it forward and I have to use the arrow key to get there.
I haven't been able to find documentation of this behavior, but this seems strange to me. What's the reasoning behind this (for my own curiosity), and how can I get around it (or deal with it)?
it is a little more clear if you use gvim, where the cursor changes.
insert mode in gvim has the cursor as an I-beam, since the next letter you type will be inserted after the |. normal mode has the block cursor, because the next thing you type may just effect the letter that is currently highlighted (like if you use x, s, etc). So insert mode is actually adding text, but normal mode is modifying text in some way.
So in normal mode, jumping to the end of the line really just means the last character, since that is the last thing that is possible to be modified. in insert mode, the cursor goes passed the last character, since it is possible to add things afterwards.
One thing to keep in mind is that you can control which side of the block you end up on going from normal mode to insert mode
([] means that the block cursor is over that h)
Let's say you have t[h]is text
if you pressed i at this point, the cursor would look like this (in gvim)
(| being the insert mode cursor)
Let's say you have t|his text
if you pressed a instead of i, it would look like this
Let's say you have th|is text
Another thing to keep in mind (as pavanlimo mentioned), from normal mode you can go to insert mode with your cursor just before the first character of the line, or just after the last character, with shift-I or shift-A.
I'm not quite sure of the reasoning behind it, but you can work around it by pressing:
Shift + a
You might be interested in the option virtualedit and the following value:
set virtualedit=onemore
With this option you can move the cursor one character over the end of the line and then press i to insert mode after the last character.
This solves the issue in a way but personally I find this behavior a bit odd. Only in a few cases you encounter the problem so it might be worth ignoring it ;-)
That's because all commands you use affect the letter the cursor is over. If wouldn't make sense to press x (delete 1 letter) behind the actual letter.
There's actually no need to move the cursor in command mode behind the last letter, if you want to e.g. append you can press a which puts the cursor behind the letter in insertion mode.
It is implementation-dependent on whether the cursor can move past the end of the line (at least it is an option in my editor's VIM emulation mode). You can press a to enter insert mode and start editing after the current character in this situation (rather than i).
pressing i will enter the insert mode before the cursor
a after the cursor
I before the first non empty character in the line
A at the end of the line.
So, use A to quickly start typing at the end of the line.
I suggest
:set virtualedit=onemore
:inoremap <Esc> <Esc>`^
Is there a way to keep the cusror location off-screen in Vim / gVim while scrolling? Similar to many Windows editors.
I know about marks, and do use them. I also know the '.' mark (last edit location), But looking for other ideas.
I'm asking this because sometimes i want to keep the cursor at some location, scroll to another place using the mouse-wheel, and then just press an arow key or something to get me back to that location.
No. vim is a console application, so it doesn't really make sense to have the cursour off-screen (it's possible, but would just be confusing)
An alternative solution, to paraphrase posts from this thread from comp.editors:
Ctrl+o goes to the previous cursor location, Ctrl+i goes to the next (like undo/redo for motions)
Marks seem like the other solution..
Also, use marks. Marks are named by letters. For instance typing ma remembers
the current location under mark a. To jump to the line containing mark a,
type 'a. To the exact location use `a.
Lower-case-letter marks are per-file. Upper-case-letter marks are global;
`A will switch to the file containing mark A, to the exact location.
Basically ma, move around, then `a to jump back.
Another option which Paul suggested,
gi command switches Vim to Insert mode and places cursor in the same position as where Insert mode was stopped last time.
Why don't you split the window, look at what you wanted to look at, and then close the split?
:split
or
:vsplit (if you want to split vertically)
The only similar behavior that I've found in Vim:
zt or zENTER "scroll the screen down as far as possible without moving the cursor"
zb "scroll as far up as possible".
Ctrl+E "scroll one line down, if possible"
Ctrl+Y"scroll one line up, if possible"
Sometimes you can avoid jumping to marks before entering text — gi command switches Vim to Insert mode and places cursor in the same position as where Insert mode was stopped last time.
Google says that the cursor (and therefore current line) must be visible in Vi, so you'll have to use marks.
Also very useful are the '' (2x single quotes) and `` (2x back quotes).
The former jumps back to the line you were prior to the last jump (for instance, a page down).
The latter jumps back to the line and column you were prior to the last jump.