Take the owner’s tour

The quickfix window is a special kind of window used to list the entries of the the quickfix list. The quickfix list is a handy list of addresses that we can populate and navigate at will. Each entry in the list is roughly made of:

That list—and its associated window—is global so you can’t have more than one active at the same time; But it’s pefectly possible to recall up to nine previous lists with :colder.

Vim comes with a lot of commands that populate the quickfix list, like :grep or :vimgrep, used for searching text in your project, and :make, used to build your program or pass them through a syntax checker. Once the quickfix list is populated with valid entries, one can use a number of relatively intuitively named commands to navigate it:

or :cwindow to open the interactive “quickfix window”.

One can navigate around the buffer displayed in that window with regular commands like /foo or 5j and jump to the current entry with:

The quickfix list and quickfix window have close cousins called “location list” and “location window” that pretty much work the same way except for these two differences:

Using the location list can be useful if you are heavily into windows and tab pages but the quickfix list is probably a simpler choice.

The preview window is a small window used to preview something, typically the signature of a function while we are working on its usage. It is a lot like a normal window except for these differences:

This window can be opened with a bunch of commands, among which these ones:

And closed with: :pclose or <C-w>z.

Here is the preview window in action:

The command-line is a handy way to input commands but it is not that good when it comes to editing the current command or recalling an old one and changing its parameters. This is not a design flaw or an implementation issue, though: only sane separation of concerns that should appeal to anyone used to the concept of modal editing.

You use insert mode to insert text and normal mode to edit text.

You use command-line mode to issue commands and the command-line window to edit the current command and command history.

Simple.

Opening the command-line window from the current command-line mode is done with <C-f>. This will open the relevant command history in the command-line window, with the current command ready for you to edit on the last line.

From normal mode, you can use q: to open the command-line history or q//q? to open the search history, with the cursor in an empty line. Press <CR> in normal mode to run the current command or :q to quit that window.

Here is the command-line window in action:

Some hardcore Ex command users like to use the command-line window instead of the usual command-line. This can be done by overriding : in normal mode:

I don’t recommend doing that, actually, but I think it is an interesting example of customization.

The tab line is a list of "tabs" working as proxies for tab pages. Each tab shows some information on its associated tab page:

If you have enabled mouse support in your vimrc and your terminal emulator supports that feature, you can use your mouse to switch to a tab page, reorder the tabs or close the current tab page by clicking on the X at the end of the tab line.

When to show a tab line can be defined with the showtabline option and what information to display depends on the tabline option.

While Vim’s tab pages are definitely not equivalent to other editor’s tabs, Vim’s tab line looks and works a lot like its counterparts and suffers from the same usability issues.

The main issue is that tabs are used to display filenames and filenames take up a lot of horizontal space. An horizontal space that is physically limited and thus incapable of displaying more than a few tabs. Many solutions exist to remedy that problem: wrapping the tab line to form a second one, adding scrolling widgets at both ends of the tab line, grouping tabs, truncating filenames…​ The harsh reality is that none of those "solutions" is free of annoying side effects which, ultimately, can turn an otherwise good idea into an unusable gyzmo.

The tab line and tab pages still have their use, mind you, but it is important to not think about them as you would in other editors.

The status line is that “bar”, at the bottom of windows, used to show information on the window itself or the buffer currently displayed in that window. It can also be used to resize windows vertically if mouse support is enabled.

By default, the status line is shown only when there is more than one window but this can be changed with the laststatus option:

The default content of the status line—the filename and a status indicator—is not exactly thrilling but it’s possible to beef it up by enabling the ruler option that shows the line and colum of the cursor and tells how much of the buffer is currently visible.

It is very common, though, to customize it a bit further by playing with the statusline option that gives more control over the status line’s content and appearance.

This is how I define the status line shown in the picture above, the explanation for each item can be found in :help 'statusline':

It is also possible to define colors for specific parts or use functions to display dynamic information not provided by Vim but I recommend measure, here: the status line is an information device, not a decorative widget.

Showing line numbers is a fairly straightforward feature that doesn’t deserve much explanation. One enables it with :set number, disables it with :set nonumber and decides how much room it takes with :set numberwidth=6.

In most editors or IDEs, line numbers are only used directly by users in two ways: to communicate with other people who work on the same code and to jump to a specific line.

In addition, Vim allows us to use line numbers as prefix for many normal mode commands or to define the range and/or the address for many Ex commands:

But we are not limited to absolute line numbers: we can use relative line numbers to see how far a line is from the current line.

Relative numbers can be enabled with set relativenumber and used in the same way as absolute line numbers:

The “fold column” is disabled by default but can be enabled by setting the foldcolumn option to a number between 1 and 12. It is used to show information about the folds in your buffer and to let you open and close them with the mouse if mouse support is enabled.

Open folds are marked with a clickable -, lines belonging to a fold are marked with a | and closed folds are marked with a clickable +.

The “sign column” can’t be shown or hidden easily. Actually, only plugin authors have to manage signs so they are not really the most interesting feature to explore. Vim shows the sign column when you have one or more signs in your buffer, removes it when there’s no sign anymore and that’s about it.

The color and content of individual signs is usually defined by plugin authors whereas the background of the column is the responsibility of your colorscheme.

The “vertical split” is the vertical bar that separates two windows. Like the status line, it can be dragged with the mouse to resize windows and…​ that’s about it.

It’s style is defined by the VertSplit highlight group and the character used to draw it can be changed with the fillchars option. In the example below, a simple space is used instead of the original “pipe” character:

The completion menu comes up when you press one of the many key-combinations affected to insert mode completion and there is at least one or more possible completions. In pure "modal" fashion, once the menu is displayed, some keys acquire a new meaning to allow cursor movement and selection but the general pattern stays consistent with the general Vim UI and works more or less how we expect.

problems and solutions (to be written)

The command-line is Vim’s main interface. Like the prompt of your computer’s shell, it is used to send commands to Vim and for feedback if necessary.