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I'd like to move the current tab into a new (visual/real) window in MacVim.

It's probably difficult, as:

  • there is nothing in the vim help and only very few - not helpful - hits on google
  • MacVim does not support it (link, 2009)

So I am wondering if someone has found a way to achieve this?

h2459jl
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2 Answers2

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The closest I think you can come is using mksession

This will have several drawbacks (like, initially the secondary session will open a few more buffers than ultimately desired). However, it will preserve your mappings, settings, history, window layout (if you had multiple windows inside the current tab, they will all get cloned).

If this idea tickles your fancy, you could look at creating a script that will filter parts out of the session file (which is Yust Another Vim Text Script)

:mksession! $HOME/detach.vim
:tabclose
:silent! !gvim remote --servername Detach -nR +'silent! source H:\detach.vim' +tabonly
  1. save all current windows, mappings, settings (:he mksession)
  2. close the tab we are about to detach
  3. clone the session (detach.vim) into a remote vim
    • :silent! (try not to talk too much)
    • !gvim remote --servername Detach; launch a new remote Vim server if it doesn't yet exist, or talk to the existing server named Detach
    • -nR TODO Fix This is here to avoid the use of swapfiles (because I found no way to suppress the dreaded ATTENTION messages[1]). However, this may be unsafe advice depending on your situation, which is why I also include -R for read-only mode
    • +'silent! source H:\detach.vim' +tabonly -- In the remote vim, source the session to clone, and keep only the active tab (that was already closed in step 1.)

A little rough around the edges, for sure, but quite close to what you intended, I feel. If you are comfortable, you can drop the -nR flags and just click through a few annoying swapfile attention messages (keyboard: Q).

[1] :he ATTENTION

Post-scripts:

  • on windows you might want to use :silent! !start /b gvim .... in case you have terminal windows sticking around
  • also on windows, you might get annoying behaviour if the resulting gvim window is too small. The :simalt ~x sequence is one hacky way to maximize the window (assuming English UI, because x is the accelerator for Maximize)
  • as icing on the cake, vim 7.3 has 'persistent undo'. See e.g. :se undofile
sehe
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    Although you can set things up to open file into a new Desktop window, doing that negates many of the advantages of using Vim. Each Vim desktop window is a separate Vim instance that is independent and knows nothing about the other. You give up ability to navigate between files using Vim's buffer and tab navigation, ability to use regular yank and paste between the Vim windows, and much more. Maybe this doesn't matter in some cases. But better solution in most cases is to use Vim's built-in windowing to view more than one document at a time. – Herbert Sitz May 25 '11 at 11:58
  • @Herbert: Who's arguing? I just answer the question. Perhaps you meant to comment at the question instead of my answer? – sehe May 25 '11 at 12:02
  • @sehe: I understand you may not be arguing in favor of doing what he asks. And you give nice answer. But in my experience many vim users who ask the OP's question may not realize the drawbacks of using multiple Vim instances. That should be pointed out. Sure, my comment is more towards question than to your answer. – Herbert Sitz May 25 '11 at 12:05
  • @Herbert: I'd appreciate if you could move the original comment then (just copy, paste, delete original). I'll remove my part of this exchange so we can have a clean comment trail on the _content_ of my answer. Tyvm – sehe May 25 '11 at 12:14
  • @Herbert: in my case the tab (window) is for lookup only, I wanted to move it to a second monitor. – h2459jl May 25 '11 at 13:49
  • @sehe: thanks! It doesn't work 100 % yet (the last line with :silent, and gvim replaced by mvim). However if I open detach.vim with your command from the console, the former tab (minus NERDtree) appears in a new window. – h2459jl May 25 '11 at 13:56
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    @Hans-Peter: Having it on different monitor may be good reason to open a second vim instance. Just be aware that the buffers in that Vim instance won't share be part of the same session as buffers in your other Vim. You negate a lot of the power of Vim by opening different instances, but as in cases like yours sometimes tradeoff may be justified and sehe's answer gives you good way to do it. – Herbert Sitz May 25 '11 at 16:17
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I don't think this is possible because, when you open a new instance of (g)vim you don't have access to the undo-history of the previous vim instance. All you can do is (in command mode):

:!gvim %

It will open the current file in a new instance of gvim. At least this is all I could think of. I may be wrong

sica07
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  • **(a)** what does undo history have to do with the question? **(b)** vim 7.3 has [`persistent undo`](https://groups.google.com/group/vim_announce/browse_thread/thread/66c02efd1523554b) – sehe May 25 '11 at 11:46
  • Once the file is reloaded (using the method I suggested), the edits prior to the reload are lost. I was thinking that he would like something like a session clone (including the undo-branches). Anyway, I didn't knew about persistent undo, thanks. – sica07 May 25 '11 at 11:59