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Comment by scott_s | Hacker News Reader

I feel silly for only recently discovering tabs in vim.

  :tabnew file

Opens up a new tab,

  :tabn

Goes to the next tab, and

  :tabp

Goes to the previous tab. Works great in both gui and non-gui mode.

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Similar to this, you can open up multiple files at the same time without saving.

    set bufhidden
    nmap <C-h> :bp
    nmap <C-l> :bn

If you put this in your .vimrc file, you'll need to put a '^M' at the end of the nmap lines. You do this by doing <C-v><C-m> and it puts in a special character that means newline. Then you can switch between open buffers with ctrl+l and ctrl+h even if you have unsaved changes. it will end up looking like this:

    set bufhidden
    nmap <C-h> :bp^M
    nmap <C-l> :bn^M

Unfortunately if you have many files open and don't touch them all it prevents you from quitting with a message 'E173: 17 more files to edit'. I haven't worked out how to obliterate this without damaging features I want (e.g. not quitting when there's unsaved data in those other files).

The default vim that ships with linux distributions is often a pile of junk that has been hacked by the distribution, is missing features like these. You want to get vim-extended under redhat-like distributions (they've significantly improved the quality if their junk vim in recent releases), and vim-nox or vim-full in debian-like distributions.

Instead of a literal ^M in the file, just use <CR>.

And I think you mean "set hidden".

And regarding E173: You can :qa, which won't lose any unsaved changes.

And the proper vim package for Debian or Ubuntu is "vim". "vim-full" is the old name and it just installs "vim".

I rely on buffers rather than tabs, too, and find minibufexplorer.vim to be a great addition: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=159

I never got the hang of tabs. I got comfortable with buffers before tabs were out, and I didn't see anything that tabs could offer that buffers don't. I probably have my screen split between two buffers 60% of the time. Once in a while I have my screen split with screen AND with vim :D

tabs are pretty cool, but I like split and a set of macros I use for easily switching. The main reason I prefer split screen to tabs is that I often want to see code in the other buffer while I work.

Open up a file, :split a new one, and then try these:

map <C-j> <C-w>j80<C-w>+ " up one window, maximized map <C-k> <C-w>k80<C-w>+ " down one window, maximized map <C-h> 80<C-w>+ " maximize current window map <C-i> <C-w>= " all windows equal height

tabs are pretty cool, but I like split and a set of macros I use for easily switching. The main reason I prefer split screen to tabs is that I often want to see code in the other buffer while I work.

Open up a file, :split a new one, and then try these:

map <C-j> <C-w>j80<C-w>+ " up one window, maximized map <C-k> <C-w>k80<C-w>+ " down one window, maximized map <C-h> 80<C-w>+ " maximize current window map <C-i> <C-w>= " all windows equal height

gt and gT in command mode also do next tab and previous tab

I never bothered to learn that stuff before I started using Vimperator. I tend to prefer buffers over tabs for dealing with multiple files in a single Vim instance, so I never had much use for tab-related keybindings until I started using a vi-like interface for a tabbed browser.

Maybe that's just me, though.

also #gt will go that tab number. I've changed my tab text to show the number in parenthesis before the name.

For those who prefer alt navigation, you can add to your gvimrc

  " tab navigation
  map <A-1>  1gt
  map <A-2>  2gt
  map <A-3>  3gt
  map <A-4>  4gt
  map <A-5>  5gt
  map <A-6>  6gt
  map <A-7>  7gt
  map <A-8>  8gt
  map <A-9>  9gt
  map <A-0>  10gt

What is that heretical "g" doing in front of "vimrc"?

You know, if I had a terminal emulator that I could run vim with 24-bit colour depth in, that would go a long way towards turning me from the path of heresy.

Maybe it's some config he only uses in gvim.

Whoosh . . . ?

This also works with Vimperator. I'm now thinking about installing that Firefox extension that gives all the tabs numbers, for ease of reference. Alas, I don't remember what it was called -- but I'm sure I'll find it again.

That's a neat idea. How do you change it to show tab number in the tab header?

This is for GVIM.

  set guitablabel=(%N%M)\ %f

    :help setting-tabline

Awesome, I didn't know this shortcut before! Much better than using :tabn :tabp !

You can always open files as tabs at startup too with -p, like this: vim -p foo.c foo.h

Thanks, I've made frequent use of doing that with -o (horizontal split) and -O (vertical split).

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