I am used to emacs but I am trying out vim to see which one I like better. One thing that I like about emacs is the ability to run a terminal inside emacs. Is this possible inside of vim? I know that you can execute commands from vim, but I would like to be able to run a terminal inside of a tab.
To be pedantic, vim-shell is a patch, not an 'add-on' (which to me, at least, implies that it's a script). I haven't tried it personally, but the vim-shell page on the Vim wiki unfortunately suggests that it won't compile with Vim 7.1+.
Steve K
2009-08-06 14:38:07
Changed to appease the pedant. :) (Had to type something longer than 15 characters. 'Fixed' wasn't long enough)
romandas
2009-08-06 16:52:36
+4
A:
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to achieve (I've never used emacs), but you can run commands in vim by typing:
:! somecommand [ENTER]
and if you want to type in several commands, or play around in a shell for a while, you can always use
:! bash (or your favourite shell) [ENTER]
once the command or shell terminates, you'll be given the option to press [ENTER] to return to your editor window
vim is intentionally lightweight and lacking in the ability to do non-editorish type things, just as running a full-blown shell inside a vim pane/tab, but as mentioned above there are 3rd party addons such as vim-shell that allow you to do that sort of thing
typically if I want to switch between vim and my shell (bash), I just hit CTRL+Z to pause the vim process, play around in my shell, then type 'fg' when I want to go back to vim - keeping my editor and my shell nice and separate.
David Claridge
2009-08-06 01:47:51
And if you want to copy the command's output to the current buffer::r! dir
Leonardo Constantino
2009-08-12 19:03:30
+17
A:
I would definitely recommend screen for something like this. Vim is a text editor, not a shell.
I would use Ctrl+AS to split the current window horizontally. Then use Ctrl+ATab (or equivalently, Ctrl+ACtrl+I which may be easier to type) to switch between the windows. There are other commands to change the size and arrangement of the windows.
Or a less advanced use of screen is just to open multiple full-screen windows and toggle between them. This is what I normally do, I only use the split screen feature occasionally.
The GNU Screen Survival Guide question has a number of good tips if you're unfamiliar with its use.
Greg Hewgill
2009-08-06 02:09:29
+1 I only just recently recieved the screen gospel. I wonder how I lived without it.
guns
2009-08-11 03:30:18
You can also use screen with Vim plugin Vicle to send commands edited in vim to a screen session.
skinp
2009-08-12 13:04:14
I'm not sure if you can do it in the stock screen, but Ubuntu's version lets you do vertical splits with Ctrl+A | (that's a vertical pipe). Much nicer, imo.
Steve K
2009-08-23 01:26:49
If I could I'd vote twice for this. I heard about screen long ago but never used it. This tip will save me a LOT of time. thanks.
yogsototh
2010-05-12 12:29:40
Unfortunately, using a vertical split slows down STDOUT (at least on my machine). `ls -R` is a lot slower with the split than without, for example.
Benjamin Oakes
2010-05-27 15:21:07
+2
A:
You might want to take a look at the :sh command (see :help sh in vim).
Eric Schwabe
2009-08-10 19:10:26
+2
A:
The way that I get around this is to pause Vim with Ctrl+z, play in the terminal, then return to Vim with the command fg.
ptrin
2009-08-11 03:15:11
+6
A:
Check out Conque shell. Lets you run any interactive program inside vim, not just a shell.
redmoskito
2010-05-26 14:45:06