Automatically load remote files in vim using netrw

Question

I use vim and its netrw plugin to edit remote files too often. Many times, I had to close the current session and start a complete new session again later. But loading all those files (a lot of them) takes a lot of time and involvement (since I need to go to different dir and load those files one-by-one manually).

I need help to automate the file-loading process in the netrw. I tried to do it myself using execute and normal! but there seems to be some problem (as the search operation like execute 'normal! /root' does not seem to work).

I tried using <CR> and it gives me Trailing characters error.

I know the absolute path of the files that I want to load. How can I automate the file-loading process ?

Can't you just load everything you want, then `:mksession my_remote_session.vim`? — Amadan, Jun 23 '17 at 06:56

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 23 '17 at 06:58

1

You've already used the right term in your question: sessions can help with that. You create one via :mksession; this basically generates a Vim script that, when executed (via :source Session.vim) in a new Vim instance, will restore all current buffers. This also works with netrw's remote buffers - I only had to reload via :e! to fetch the contents again.

Note: There are plugins that further simplify session handling; I can recommend the vim-session plugin.

answered Jun 23 '17 at 06:58

Ingo Karkat

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Cool ! that works like a charm ! Thanks, I should have thought that ... – zeekhuge Jun 23 '17 at 12:37
Glad I could help. I had never used netrw buffers in sessions; also had to try that out myself. – Ingo Karkat Jun 23 '17 at 12:45
Any idea why I was not able to use `execute 'normal! /root'` like things ? or about `` giving trailing characters error ? – zeekhuge Jun 23 '17 at 15:19

Automatically load remote files in vim using netrw

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