I would like to open a file in a gvim window, but only if the file is not open in vim already. Preferedly by using commandline options. I tried
file=...
gvim --cmd ':drop $file'
But this opens an additional visible new empty window in my linux environment if the file is already open. Is there a different option/command to achieve the unique behaviour of other editors.
$ gvim --remote filename
Does exactly what you describe. You may need a couple of things in your ~/.vimrc, though:
set switchbuf=useopen,usetab
Related
Using vim, I use :term to open the terminal emulator. After cd /path/to/project within the terminal emulator, I have a file called foo.txt. If I did vim foo.txt to open it as I would in a normal terminal, it would open vim within vim which causes a variety of issues. I see two potential solutions:
Find some way to open a file in a split from the terminal emulator
Find some way to change the cwd of vim to the cwd of the terminal emulator.
Does anyone have tips on either solution?
Inside Vim's builtin terminal, do
vim --remote foo.txt
This assume that your Vim was compile with the +clientserver option. You can check with :version or :echo has('clientserver').
vim --remote works on vim, but neovim compiles without clientserver. neovim-remote seems to be an alternative for neovim.
You have a couple of options.
One would be to get your shell to print the full path of the file that you would like to edit (for example, by using bash's realpath ./<file_to_edit_goes_here> command), then exit insert mode, place your cursor over the filepath that was printed, and use gf to open the filepath under the cursor (see :help gf).
Alternatively, if you are using Neovim, I've written a plugin called nvim-unception to open files without nesting Neovim sessions by using Neovim 0.7's built-in RPC functionality.
When I try to open a file in Vim (Linux) for editing, when I press TAB, Vim autocompletes filename only with filenames from the current directory. However, having searched on the Web, I suppose that from version 7 Vim should support bash-like filename autocompletion using filenames from all the directories in the search path.
Say, there is a file file1 in a directory dir1 (which directory is also in the environment variable PATH).
I type the following commands in Vim:
set path=/dir1
set wildmode=list:longest
And then, when I type:
:e fil<TAB>
The filename is not autocompleted. How to enable this feature in Vim?
Tab-completion works. You just expect it to do something it is not actually supposed to do.
:e[dit] and its siblings (:sp[lit], :vs[plit], :tabe[dit]) don't use the path option at all, no matter what version of Vim you have.
Use :fin[d] fil<Tab> instead (and :sf[ind], :vert sf[ind], :tabf[ind]).
Use set path=/dir1/** to make :find recursive.
See :help 'path' and :help :find.
edit
It is generally considered "good practice" to start Vim from the root of your project:
$ cd /path/to/project
$ vim somefile
The main advantage being that it sets Vim's "current directory" to a usable value that allows you to browse your project relatively easily or use external programs on your project in a clean and intuitive way.
Say I want to open the file "main.cpp". I have my linux terminal open in the correct directory. Normally, I just type "vi main.cpp", but this opens the file in the shell window. How do I open the file in another window?
I'm not sure I understand your question. I try to answer nevertheless:
:help client-server
Thus, you create a server instance:
vim --servername foo
Afterwards you can open files in that instance from any shell via:
vim --servername foo --remote file1 file2
Or even shorter:
vim --servername vim and vim --remote file1 (the server name 'vim' is assumed here implicitely).
EDIT: Your Vim needs to have support for the client-server architecture:
:echo has('clientserver') should result in '1'.
You can do it using two steps:
:vs (vertical split) or :split (horizontal split)
:open (path to filename)
You may want to try gvim main.cpp which will fire up vim in its own GUI which technically will do what you're asking here.
vi is a terminal text editor. It will open in the terminal window it is called from. If you wanted an X based editor, like gVIM, then you are using the wrong editor.
I'm having a headache trying to figure out why vim isn't copying to a system buffer.
Here's my workflow:
vim asd
y1y
:q
vim qwe
p
On computerA and computerB, this works as I want it to: the line yanked from the file asd is put into the file qwe.
On computerC, this doesn't work.
All systems are running Ubuntu 8.04. computerA has the vim-full package installed, computerB and computerC have the vim package installed. computerA has xorg installed, is using the fluxbox window manager, and is accessed locally. computerB and computerC don't have X, and I'm sshing into both of them.
I've done a lot of reading and thought it was because computerC was compiled with -clipboard, but I ran vim --version on all three computers and only computerA was compiled with +clipboard.
Am I missing something obvious? I believe the user's .vimrc and the global vimrc files are the same. I can post output of vim --version and contents of vimrc files if that would help.
Vim by default doesn't copy to a system buffer. The only way that it would remember the contents is if the multiple instances of vim use the same .viminfo file. It's possible that the .viminfo file isn't being written due to file permissions or due to a different setting in 'viminfo' (the option).
For more information on the viminfo configuration, see
:help 'viminfo'
To look at your current configuration on each computer, do:
:set viminfo?
As an aside, if you want to use the system clipboard (which must be present, so you'd need to do ssh -X), you can use:
:set clipboard+=unnamed
Then all copy and paste operations will use the X11 selection buffer. Of course, you need vim compiled with +clipboard for this to work, so it won't solve your immediate problem. See:
:help 'clipboard'
for more information.
Perhaps you could post the result of the following on each computer?
:set viminfo?
:set clipboard?
This would help us to diagnose the problem in more detail. Could you also try:
vim asd
"ayy
:q
vim qwe
"ap
This will use register a instead of the unnamed register.
Why not use "+y and "+p, they work directly with the system's clipboard buffer
vim asd
"+y
:q
vim qwe
"+p
Take a look in .viminfo
if the last thing you yanked was hi it should contain:
Registers:
""0 LINE 0
hi
Maybe the file permissions are messed up?
It doesn't exactly solve your problem, but a perfectly fine workaround would be
vim asd
y1y
:sp qwe
p
:q
Which will open asd and yank from it (obviously), then split-open qwe, put your just-yanked item, and close the split-opened file. With this approach, there's no need to close the document you're working on a start a new instance of Vim.
And if you don't like the horizontal split, :vsp makes a vertical split, which can sometimes be easier to read/use.
OK, I don't know about the system buffer issue, but what about simply opening the new file with :e filename, then pasting, then saving and :e #ing your way back to the original file if needed? Yeah I know, tabs and splits are cool, but simple can do the job too.
You could also use ex, either from the target file to read the content to be included via the :r command supplying a line range, or from the source file to append the selected text (either via simple line number/range or the almighty g command) with :w >> filename.
Try this:
set clipboard=unnamed
It allows copying and pasting through the system clipboard.
By making use of the remote feature in vim, is it possible to reuse an instance of vim to load up multiple files as needed.
It will be nice to have that facility from within the same terminal instance.
I am more keen to have a tab based interface, which available in vim 7+
The scenario should be
Open terminal
vim file1.cpp
Edit - Save - Ctrl+Z to get to prompt
open another file
vim file2.cpp
Now we have file1.cpp and file2.cpp open in the same editor
Is that possible?!
I'm not sure if this can be done in exactly the manner that you're specifying, but something very similar can probably be done using a vim server running on your local machine.
Look into the :help remote.txt in Vim.
If your version of vim was compiled with +clientserver you can use vim to create a vim server, and then execute commands on it, e.g. opening another file.
The --servername switch can create a new server, and the --remote switch can send additional commands or files to it.
e.g.
vim --servername test file1.txt
vim --servername test --remote file2.txt
I've had a look, and the vim I'm using as standard on xubuntu on one of my computers doesn't have it, but there are some instructions here that may help if yours has it compiled. If it isn't, installing gvim and symlinking is apparently an option (as gvim has it included by default), or compiling the binaries from source.
Edit:
I've had more of a play with gvim and this doesn't look possible to do this within the terminal. Control-Z suspends the job at the process level. I thought it might work with screen, but no communication seems to take place unless gvim has launched in a graphical window,
This is easy to do if you compiled VIM with +clientserver, as Andy suggested in a previous answer.
I did the following:
I started up VIM as a server:
vim --servername abc
I suspended it with CTRL+Z and did:
vim --servername abc --remote ~/.cshrc
fg
Now VIM had ~/.cshrc open.
Then I did:
vim --servername abc --remote ~/.aliases
fg
Now VIM had one buffer with ~/.cshrc and another with ~/.aliases.
Then I did:
vim --servername abc --remote-tab ~/foo_bar
fg
And now I VIM had one tab with the two previous buffers open and another tab with ~/foo_bar open.
In call cases VIM was running in the terminal, not as a GUI.
I have a couple suggestions for you, though neither is exactly what you're talking about. The first is NERD Tree, which gives you a nice tree-based file browser for opening other files. Very handy. I also set up a hot key (ctrl+o) to open NERD Tree for me. I keep an alias of whatever project I'm on in ~/curr/trunk, so this always works for me:
map <C-O> :NERDTreeToggle ~/curr/trunk/<CR>
The other thing that I would suggest is to do away with ctrl+z. It's somewhat clunky, and everyone I know who uses that method tends to get lost and end up with 3 or 4 vim's running in the background. Take a look at how to open a shell for yourself. I use a map for ;s to execute a shell script:
map ;s :!~/.vim/shell.sh<CR>
Which executes:
#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/bash -l;
I also have a bit of magic in my .profile for making it obvious I'm in VIM:
if [ "$VIMRUNTIME" != "" ] ; then
export PS1="\u#\h \W \t$ vim> "
fi
</2 cents>
You can split the current screen and open two (or more) files in the following way:
For a horizontal split, do:
:sp 'filename'
and for a vertical split, do:
:vsp 'filename'
To tab between the two, hit ctrl+w, then use an arrow key to navigate to whichever file you want to edit.
Also, if you want to just switch files (and only have one open), you can do this:
:e 'filename'
G'day,
Or if you want to have multiple files but use the whole vim window for one file at a time you can just enter
:e 'filename'
to open the new file. You can do this multiple times. To see what you've currently got open, enter
:ls
To bounce between the files you've got open you can use cntl-^ (shift-cnt-6) and that will alternate between the main and secondary files (shown with a % and # in the file list)
Or you can enter
:n b
where n is the number at the beginning of the file you want in the list shown by the 'ls'command.
HTH
cheers,
You can set the hidden feature on vim, to allow it to have multiple files open:
:set hidden
Then you can open as many files as you want, without bothering to save them every time you want to switch a "buffer":
:e 'filename'
You have several commands to navigate the buffers:
:bnext
:bprev
:buffers
Of course, as mentioned by samoz, you can split your screen to see multiple buffers on the same window.
I'd suggest to read this for a good introduction about vim, it will save you a lot of time.
Good luck!