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GoldenView.Vim

Always have a nice view for vim split windows!

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Install / Use

/learn @zhaocai/GoldenView.Vim
About this skill

Quality Score

0/100

Supported Platforms

Universal

README

Always have a nice view for vim split windows

------------- - -----------------------------------------------
Plugin        : GoldenView.vim
Author        : Zhao Cai
EMail         : caizhaoff@gmail.com
Homepage      : http://zhaocai.github.io/GoldenView.Vim/
Vim.org       : http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=4529
Version       : 1.3.6
Date Created  : Tue 18 Sep 2012 05:23:13 PM EDT
Last Modified : Mon 22 Apr 2013 05:55:22 PM EDT
------------- - -----------------------------------------------

The initial motive for [GoldenView][GoldenView] comes from the frustration of using other vim plugins to auto-resize split windows. The idea is deadly simple and very useful: resize the focused window to a proper size. However, in practice, many hiccups makes auto-resizing not a smooth experience. Below are a list of issues [GoldenView][GoldenView] attempts to solve:

First and the most important one, auto-resizing should play nicely with existing plugins like tagbar, vimfiler, unite, VOoM, quickfix, undotree, gundo, etc. These windows should manage there own window size.

Second, auto-resizing should take care of the other windows too. Resizing the focused window may cause the other windows become too small. When you have 4+ split windows, auto-resizing may just make a mess out of it.

GoldView Screencast

Features

[GoldenView][GoldenView] has preliminarily solved the issues described above. It also provides other features. Bascally, it does two things:

1. AutoResizing

First of all, it automatically resize the focused split window to a "golden" view based on [golden ratio][golden-ratio-wikipedia] and textwidth.

2. Tiled Windows Management

Second, it maps a single key (<C-L> by default) to nicely split windows to tiled windows.

----+----------------+------------+---+
|   |                |            |   |
| F |                |    S1      | T |
| I |                +------------| A |
| L |                |    S2      | G |
| E |   MAIN PANE    +------------+ B |
| R |                |    S3      | A |
|   |                |            | R |
|   |                |            |   |
+---+----------------+------------+---+

To get this view, just hit <C-L> 4 times. or, if you have a large monitor, you may get tiled windows below.

----+---------------+--------------+------------+---+
|   |               |              |            |   |
| F |               |              |    S1      | T |
| I |               |              +------------| A |
| L |               |      M2      |    S2      | G |
| E |   MAIN PANE   |              +------------+ B |
| R |               |              |    S3      | A |
|   |               |              |            | B |
|   |               |              |            |   |
+---+---------------+--------------+------------+---+

To quickly switch between those windows, a few keys are mapped to

  • Focus to the main window
  • Switch with the MAIN PANE, the largest, smallest, etc.
  • Jump to the next and previous window

Installation

Install [GoldenView][GoldenView] is the same as installing other vim plugins. If experienced with vim, you can skim the example below and move to next section.

Option A - With [Plugin Manager][vim-plugin-manager] ( recommended )

If you use plugin managers like Pathogen, vundle, neobundle, vim-addon-manager, etc., just unarchive the zip file or clone the [GoldenView][GoldenView] repo from git://github.com/zhaocai/GoldenView.git into your local plugin installation directory (most likely ~/.vim/bundle/). Then add corresponding scripts in .vimrc for the bundle manager you are using.

Example:

  • neobundle:
    NeoBundle 'zhaocai/GoldenView.Vim' "Always have a nice view for vim split windows
  • vundle:
    Bundle 'zhaocai/GoldenView.Vim'
  • vim-addon-manager:
    call vam#ActivateAddons(['GoldenView.Vim'], {'auto_install' : 1})

Option B - Without [Plugin Manager][vim-plugin-manager]

Unarchive the zip file into a directory that is under runtimepath of your vim, ~/.vim for example.

Quick Start

[GoldenView][GoldenView] should work out of the box without configuration. It should automatically start to resize focused window to [golden ratio][golden-ratio-wikipedia] based on textwidth and vim available size. You may start to play with it now.

To get you started, a few default keys are mapped as below:

" 1. split to tiled windows
nmap <silent> <C-L>  <Plug>GoldenViewSplit

" 2. quickly switch current window with the main pane
" and toggle back
nmap <silent> <F8>   <Plug>GoldenViewSwitchMain
nmap <silent> <S-F8> <Plug>GoldenViewSwitchToggle

" 3. jump to next and previous window
nmap <silent> <C-N>  <Plug>GoldenViewNext
nmap <silent> <C-P>  <Plug>GoldenViewPrevious

The meaning of those keys are self-explaining. A general workflow would be <Plug>GoldenViewSplit key to quickly and nicely split windows to the layout as below. Then you may open your files.

----+----------------+------------+---+
|   |                |            |   |
| F |                |    S1      | T |
| I |                +------------| A |
| L |                |    S2      | G |
| E |   MAIN PANE    +------------+ B |
| R |                |    S3      | A |
|   |                |            | R |
|   |                |            |   |
+---+----------------+------------+---+

To switch S1 with MAIN PANE, in S1 and hit <Plug>GoldenViewSwitchMain. To switch back, hit <Plug>GoldenViewSwitchToggle in either MAIN PAIN or S1

g:goldenview__enable_default_mapping

Every experienced vim user has a different set of key mappings. If you you are (most likely) unhappy about some of the mappings, map you own keys as below:

let g:goldenview__enable_default_mapping = 0

nmap <silent> <MY_KEY> <Plug>GoldenViewSplit
" ... and so on

g:goldenview__enable_at_startup

if you do not want to start auto-resizing automatically, you can put the following script in your vimrc.

let g:goldenview__enable_at_startup = 0

More Commands and Mappings

:ToggleGoldenViewAutoResize

:DisableGoldenViewAutoResize

:EnableGoldenViewAutoResize

These commands toggle, enable, and disable GoldenView auto-resizing.

:GoldenViewResize

this command do manual resizing of focused window.

You can also map a key for this as below:

nmap <silent> <YOUR_KEY> <Plug>GoldenViewResize

:SwitchGoldenViewMain

:SwitchGoldenViewLargest

:SwitchGoldenViewSmallest

these commands do as it named.

You can also add mappings as below. ( no default keys for these mappings)

nmap <silent> <YOUR_KEY> <Plug>GoldenViewSwitchWithLargest
nmap <silent> <YOUR_KEY> <Plug>GoldenViewSwitchWithSmallest

Other switch rules can be easily defined. If you have some ideas, please post to [github issue][GoldenViewIssue] for discussion.

Rules

[GoldenView][] defines two rules:

g:goldenview__ignore_urule

is to "ignore" - allow those special buffers to manage their own window size.

g:goldenview__restore_urule

is to "restore" - restore window size of some of special buffers.

The urule (user rules) are like this, which will be normalize at runtime for faster processing.

    \{
    \   'filetype' : [
    \     ''        ,
    \     'qf'      , 'vimpager', 'undotree', 'tagbar',
    \     'nerdtree', 'vimshell', 'vimfiler', 'voom'  ,
    \     'tabman'  , 'unite'   , 'quickrun', 'Decho' ,
    \   ],
    \   'buftype' : [
    \     'nofile'  ,
    \   ],
    \   'bufname' : [
    \     'GoToFile'                  , 'diffpanel_\d\+'      ,
    \     '__Gundo_Preview__'         , '__Gundo__'           ,
    \     '\[LustyExplorer-Buffers\]' , '\-MiniBufExplorer\-' ,
    \     '_VOOM\d\+$'                , '__Urannotate_\d\+__' ,
    \     '__MRU_Files__' ,
    \   ],
    \},

Profiles

[GoldenView][] defines two profile:

g:goldenview__active_profile

defines the functions and preferences to auto resize windows.

g:goldenview__reset_profile

defines reset preferences to restore everything to default.

function GoldenView#ExtendProfile() is provided to customize preferences.

For more details, please read the source code! :)

Troubleshooting:

Please do not resize me!

[GoldenView][] maintains rules for "common" cases. But vim offers a great variety of plugins which defines buffers for special purposes. If you find some special buffers which is supposed to not be auto-resized. Please check g:goldenview__ignore_urule. You may extend the g:goldenview__active_profile yourself or post the issue to [github issue][GoldenViewIssue] for adding it to builtin support.

[minibufexpl.vim][] takes 5+ lines

Check my fork [minibufexpl.vim][] to see if it is working for you. I have send pull request to the origin repo.

I cannot resize window height to < 7

This is features. As mentioned in the Introduction section, there is no normal cases to have a normal window too small. For special cases like [minibufexpl.vim][], it can be handled case by case.

However, if you really want to have small windows. It can be done by :


" Extend a new profile named 'small-height' from default profile.
"
" 1. Change "2" to your desire minimal height
" 2. Change "small-height" to the profile name you like
" -----------------------------------------------------------

zhaocai

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GitHub Stars218
CategoryDevelopment
Updated10mo ago
Forks14
zhaocai/GoldenView.Vim

Languages

VimL

Security Score

72/100

Audited on Jun 5, 2025

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