Scrolling down both parts of a split-window at the same time in Vim

Question

Is it possible to scroll down the left and right parts of a vertically split window in Vim? I have two files I would like to compare roughly. Each line of these files looks almost the same.

Bracelet

Answer 1

See the documentation for scroll-binding. You'll need to set this for each window that you want bound (e.g. a minimum of 2)

If you're comparing 2 files, however, vimdiff may be of more use

Godric

@BrianAgnew Please include the actual code, not just links. – Paten

:set scrollbind in each split window – Godric

Answer 2

Go to the first split, and type in

:set scrollbind

Go to the next one (ctrl+w), and do the same.

To disable:

:set noscrollbind

For more info, check the documentation for scroll binding - http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/scroll.html#scroll-binding

Snapdragon

If you have all the files open, you can also :windo set scrollbind, to set it for all splits at once. – Karyotype

it's nuggets like these that make me wonder why we don't teach this stuff in school – Bounce

:set scrollbind! to toggle – Underhung

Answer 3

:windo set scrollbind

will set scrollbind in all windows.

Dysprosium

If you find yourself doing this a lot, it might be useful to have something like nmap <F5> :windo set scrollbind!<cr> to toggle scrollbind in all open windows. – Aswarm

Don’t know why but scrollbind! did not work for me, but invscrollbind did. A SUPER mapping. Thanks! – Loathe

Answer 4

From the command line:

vim -O file1 file2 -c 'windo set scb!'

-O = open side by side.

-c = what follows in quotes is treated as a vim option.

'windo' = apply to all panels.

'scb' = shorthand for scrollbind. Saves some typing, but the two are interchangeable.

'!' = toggle. This way you can use the same command to turn it off later if you choose to.

Spirt

Answer 5

G'day,

Tried using vimdiff on the two files?

vimdiff file1 file2

This will give you the scroll binding by default.

Tolle

the problem is that all the lines differ, it's starting to be a mess.. The lines are nearly the same but may differ by one character...and I don't want my view to be too much disturbed..thanks though. – Bracelet

@Bracelet you might consider tweaking your colorscheme, see #24667058 – Absorbing

Answer 6

For posterity, here's what I needed to do, since I didn't start with vimdiff.

I loaded one file. Then :vsp to load the other.

They are pretty different files, but I wanted to see what's common in between them.

So...

:set diff
:set diffopt=iwhite
:set scrollbind

Revile

You can get all of those for a given buffer (:diff, :diffopt, :scrollbind) in one command with :diffthis in each of the buffers – Absorbing