How to store Vim tabstop settings in the file

vim

I need different tab widths for different files when using Vim. Is there a way to store this information in the file, and let Vim apply the setting automatically?

Best Answer

Depending on what fits your situation you could look into customizing the filetype plugins (if you want tabstop settings by filetype) or enable modelines and accept the accompanying security risks if the settings are specific to individual files.

For the filetype approach, as an example I have the following in ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/python.vim:

setlocal expandtab softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4

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Why doesn’t vim ask for password when reopenning an encrypted file

According to the vim documentation, :q closes the current window and only quits if there are no windows left. In vim, windows are merely "viewports" where buffers can be displayed. The vim documentation itself sums this up quite nicely. From :help window:

A buffer is the in-memory text of a file.
A window is a viewport on a buffer.
A tab page is a collection of windows.

If you have the hidden option set, closing a window hides the buffer but does not "abandon" it, so vim is still keeping track of the contents. With 'hidden' set, when you "reopen" the file, you are simply re-showing/un-hiding the buffer, not actually re-opening the file on disk.

For more information take a look at

:help hidden
:help abandon

Bash Display – Prevent Showing Vim Text After Exit

One of the reasons for that behaviour will be the setting of the terminal for each user.

For example:

User1 is using TERM=xterm, in this case when you exit vim it will clear the terminal.
User2 is using TERM=vt100, in this case when you exit vim it will not clear the terminal.

Check what terminal user1 is using with echo $TERM and set the same for user2. for bash:

TERM=xterm; export TERM

Best Answer

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Why doesn’t vim ask for password when reopenning an encrypted file

Bash Display – Prevent Showing Vim Text After Exit

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