Window Commands

The following table lists common commands for controlling windows in vim. See also the split , vsplit , and resize commands in Chapter 2. For brevity, control characters are marked in the following list by ^.

Command

Action

:new

Open a new window.

:new file

Open file in a new window.

:sp file

Split the current window.

:svfile

Same as :sp, but make new window read-only.

:snfile

Edit next file in new window.

:clo

Close current window.

:hid

Hide current window, unless it is the only visible window.

:on

Make current window the only visible one.

:res n

Resize window to n lines.

:wa

Write all changed buffers to file.

:qa

Close all buffers and exit.

^W s

Same as :sp.

^W n

Same as :new.

^W ^

Open new window with alternate (previously edited) file.

^W c

Same as :clo.

^W o

Same as :only.

^W j, ^W k

Move cursor to next/previous window.

^W p

Move cursor to previous window.

^W h, ^W l

Move cursor to window on left/right.

^W t, ^W b

Move cursor to window on top/bottom of screen.

^W K, ^W B

Move current window to top/bottom of screen.

^W H, ^W L

Move current window to far left/right of screen.

^W r, ^W R

Rotate windows down/up.

^W +, ^W -

Increase/decrease current window size.

^W =

Make all windows same height.

Get Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.