gnome-terminallinuxtabsterminalvim
In gnome-terminal, I can just press Alt + (1, 2, 3, etc.) to switch to specific tabs. I can also use Ctrl + (PgUp / PgDn) to cycle through tabs (admittedly less convenient, but it can be remapped).
If I want to use vim tabs instead of gnome-terminal tabs, typing :tabn and :tabp is quite cumbersome. I could map them to keyboard shortcuts, but that is still a lot less convenient than jumping directly to tab 4 with Alt + 4.
Is there a faster way to switch between tabs in vim?
If you don't have actual pageup and pagedown keys on your keyboard there is no way to map these to anything.
<C-PageDown> is an alternative to :tabnext, :tabn and gt.<C-PageUp> is an alternative to :tabprevious, :tabN and gT.I strongly suggest you use gt and gT instead, they follow Vim's grammar (lowercase letter for "forward commands", uppercase for "backward commands") and so are very easy to memorize.
If you don't like gt/gT you can map them to something more to your taste:
nnoremap <C-Up> gT
nnoremap <C-Down> gt
But I don't think it's necessary.
Your example (a PageUp/PageDown-less keyboard) seems to be a rather nice example of the intelligence of Vim's seemingly weird design decisions.
--EDIT (as per the asker's request)--
I found the correct escape sequences. In Terminal.app's keyboard settings,
set "control page up" to "send string to shell:", with this value: "\033[5;5~"
set "control page down" to "send string to shell:", with this value: "\033[6;5~"
System Settings.Hardware click Keyboard.Shortcuts tab.custom shortcuts.
Best Answer
Next tab: gt
Prior tab: gT
Numbered tab: nnngt