Having multiple tabs in vim I've noticed that when I create a new buffer, this buffer stays inside the tab where I create it. Not being an expert at vim I expected the new buffer to behave like a new chrome window where I could put more tabs in. Is there a way to have a workspace like this in vim where when I switch buffers vim would show me a new set of tabs?
Thanks in advance!
That isn't how buffers work. Buffers are containers that hold and facilitate interaction with text. To use your Chrome analogy, this is like asking: how can I open new windows in my browser tabs? which of course you can't, beacuse that is not the interface is designed to work.
As I mentioned in the comments: tabs are containers for windows. Windows display buffers. Buffers hold text.
If a higher level of hierarchical abstraction is needed on top of tabs/windows, the best bet1 is probably to just open a new terminal window and start a separate instance of vim. That is even what is suggested here. I personally never use tabs, it's too clunky and I find it easier to flip between terminal sessions, which is second nature since I do that all the time anyway. The mechanics of vim tabs don't have that kind of "portability".
1: actually, the best bet is to close some of the unnecessary documents. If you're at the point where tabs and windows just aren't enough, adding more complexity isn't going to make you more efficient.
I want to have "two vim open" because I have multiple monitors.
Also I would like them to share buffers, clipboards, etc.
So I'd like to share the same instance across two different windows.
I have found:
vim --remote file.txt
but this opens the file in the first vim; it doesn't open a new window within the same vim instance.
How can multiple vim windows share the same instance?
Although I don't believe there is a native way this can be achieved in VIM, there are however other ways to get similar behavior :
Expand your terminal to be available on both monitors, that way you can use vim splits and have one split in each monitor and hence work on the same file in both monitors. Although this is probably less cool.
Use something like tmux / screen. This way you can just launch multiple terminal windows and have them in separate monitors and connect to the same tmux session from both. You can then edit / view your vim session in either monitor and it will be perfectly mirrored in the other.
I was checking the recent atom editor with the vim plugin, and one feature that i really liked is that each split window can have tabs associated to it, i would like to know if this is possible with the vim , are there any plugins in vim to do this?
I have attached an image below to describe the windows and tabs.
TIA
No, it's not possible.
In Vim, tab pages are containers for windows and windows are containers for buffers and there's no way around that.
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I always work on multiple projects at the same time. The breakdown of the number of files I have is as follows
Project | Files
--------------------------
Thesis 20
Simulator 50
Plots 30
Graphs 30
Website 500+
Having all of these files in one window is cumbersome. There are several options, and I will discuss their drawbracks, or dare I say their Achilles Heel.
Split Windows I could split vim into 5 windows, one for each project, but I might as well be coding through a pinhole. I have actually never been a fan of split windows, except for cases where you are constantly comparing and editing two related files. Also I don't find navigating in two dimensions as seamless as in the horizontal direction only.
Tabs Tabs, or rather viewports foolishly called tabs, seem to be exactly for this kind of problem, but they don't provide restrictions for buffers to use. For example, if I'm in my Thesis tab, I want to navigate only those 20 buffers, not all 500+ website related buffers as well. As I am saving these as sessions, it could potentially lead to problems if I accidentally switch to a website buffer in my Thesis tab, exit, then upon entering I have two website tabs. This is further problematic because I have set local directories (:lcd) for each tab.
Terminal Tabs Using the Terminal tabs ensures that that buffers in each tab remain independent. However, each vim session can no longer share information. I can't yank text from one terminal to the other (I suppose I could yank into the + register). I also can no longer use :buffdo on all the buffers. Also, I like the fact that I can save all of my vim tabs to a single session.
I know SO is anathema to public discussion, so I will instead ask if there exists a way to achieve the functionality I am striving for.
EDIT A good way to summarize what I need is to say that I want "sub buffers".
EDIT What I want to get out of the tabs in vim is the ability to more effectively use them as what they really are: viewports. I want to be able to have one tab exclusively for my Thesis section. In this section I will change the local directory to reflect it. Furthermore, I want to filter out the buffers in that table to only be a subset of all the buffers. Similarly in the Simulator tab I want to use it exclusively for my Simulator files.
Essentially what I want is the ability, through tabs, to run multiple independent sessions of vim, but still with some of the added perks (ie. sharing registers to be able to yank)
I found out a way to do this. The vim tabs are near useless. Instead I used the Gnome Terminal Tabs.
global registers To simulate using global registers, so as to be able to copy paste across different instances of vim, 'pipe' the system clipboard and the unnamed register together by adding the line set clipboard=unnamedplus to your .vimrc file. This has the effect of all yank/delete... operations being copied to the system clipboard. From there, other instances of vim will have access to it. Similarly, any copy pasting you do outside of vim, will now be stored in the unnamed register.
Gnome Terminal Tab Shortcuts The default shortcuts for going to the next and previous tabs are Ctrl Pg Up and Ctrl Pg Dn. Since I use Shift k and Shift j for my next and previous buffers, I mapped Ctrl k and Ctrl j to go to my next and previous tabs. Simply go to the Gnome Terminal > Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts
Gnome Terminal Tabs Write a shell script to launch each vim instance as a new terminal tab. See here for instructions
Vim Instances Finally, for each vim instance save a session file :mksession fileName
It's not perfect (for example, named registers can not be copied across terminals) but it is, in my opinion, much more representative of what a viewport (here called 'tabs') should do.
EDIT I have actually gone back to using vim tabs. I learned vim script, and mapped my keys so ShiftJ and ShiftK map to previous/next buffers and CtrlJ and CtrlK map to previous/next tabs. Then I downloaded the tabname script so I could set meaningful tab names, then modified the making of vim sessions to save tab names (see here), then switched from gVim back to Vim so I could use the full screen mode. It was a long arduous journey, but I'd like to think it was worth it.
I have this same issue for a long time, working the same time with several projects.
To solve partially this frustration, I have used this this plugin https://github.com/xolox/vim-session.
vim-session make easier the navigation between sessions and in each session we have a project.
After using this some weeks, I became frustrated because it needs each time you need to switch, all the changes of the current session's files need to be saved.
The best solution for me now is Spacemacs with Vim mode.
I really like the editing spirit that Vim offer and the experience is the same with Spacemacs + better project handling + better git integration.
I agree with ehamberg.
Vim's buffers are global so any grouping or splitting will only appear to work for a few minutes and actually break at the first occasion.
Instead use one Vim instance for each project. If you really need to share something you can always use the system clipboard. Try set clipboard+=unnamedplus to synchronise Vim's default register with the system clipboard.
But I'm wondering if your way of managing projects is rational:
In point 3 you write "I also can no longer use :buffdo on all the buffers.". Why would you use a command that works on all the open buffers across multiple different projects?
Do you seriously have 500+ buffers open at the same time? I know Vim can probably handle it but why do you open that many buffers? I do web development for a living and I rarely work on more than a dozen files in a given day, even on "large" projects.
BufExplorer plugin can group buffers by tab. CtrlP plugin can reuse buffer from another tab.
I was using multiple vim instances for working simultaneously with different projects but it was not satisfatory. I ended up having to many open tabs in my terminal.
I've been using vim-rooter, which is a simple plugin that will automatically change the working directory to the project root of the buffer you open, provided there is a .git dir at project root. It will only be triggered only by opening files with certain extensions, but that list can be customized. Works with ctrlp and any other plugin.
Is there a way I can configure vim to remember buffers based on their tab?
I am currently working on two projects, and I have each project in its own tab, with its own local directory. To navigate through files I'm using FuzzyFinder.
The problem is that when I want to search through buffers, I get all the buffers from both projects.
Can I limit it to show only buffers from the current tab?
It may very well be that I am using a wrong approach here. If this is the case, what would be a better one?
Vim's tabs are not like most other editors tabs: they don't represent specific files or groups of files. They are just "views" allowing you to arrange buffers visually.
Vim's buffers are global and AFAIK there is no native way to bind them to specific tabs but I saw a "per-tab" fork of NERDTreee on Github the other day so it might be possible with some effort.
I use tabs only for quick edits and have usually one or two dozens buffers open. Most of them are hidden (:help hidden) and I rarely have more than 3 splits (only one file visible, most of the time). Buffer switching and file opening are done with LustyExplorer.
If I must work on two project I use two instances of GVim or two separate "GUI" windows in MacVim.
So yes, your approach is wrong (mine is most probably not perfect, either) but the culprit is the person or commity which decided to call Vim's tabs "tabs".
As a side note I find the "Rolodex Vim" idea quite enjoyable, there are two implementations on this page.