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The Problem

I understand that a variant of this question might have been answered.

I have tried :set guitablabel=%t, but there are two problems:

  1. It doesn't work in Vim in the terminal (since gui settings only work for GVim). I exclusively use terminal Vim, so the answer given doesn't apply.
  2. Files with same names in different directories are not shown their relative folders for distinction.

Current Situation

To better understand my question, say I have a project folder, awesome-project with the following structure:

awesome-project
    AAA/
        file1.txt
        file2.txt
        CCC/
            special.txt
    BBB/
        file2.txt
        file3.txt
        DDD/
            special.txt

Say I cd to the project in my terminal and vim from there.Then I proceed to open all the files in separate tabs.

Currently, my vim is set up to display the tabs as following (the |s are separators - use your imagination!):

AAA/file1.txt | AAA/file1.txt | AAA/CCC/special.txt | BBB/file2.txt | BBB/file3.txt | BBB/DDD/special.txt

What I Want

I want the tabs to display as:

file1.txt | AAA/file2.txt | CCC/special.txt | BBB/file2.txt | file3.txt | DDD/special.txt

or what Sublime Text does:

file1.txt | file2.txt --- AAA | special.txt --- AAA/CCC | file2.txt --- BBB | file3.txt | special.txt --- BBB/DDD

Essentially, given the current tabs have file names that are unique, all tabs should just display their file name. Otherwise, provide the first distinct relative folder to display in the tab so I can tell which files are file.

This is a feature in many other text editors (Sublime Text, Atom) that I would really like to keep because the relative path file names are too long for my own good.

Any help would be appreciated, whether it be:

  • a simple command that fixes the problem (yay!)
  • an available plugin
  • tips on how I can configure this manually in .vimrc
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Eddo Hintoso
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2 Answers2

3

You are — unsurprisingly — misunderstanding and misusing tab pages.

Just like Atom or Sublime Text, Vim is a document-based program but, unlike the others, it doesn't use the "tab" metaphor as proxy for those documents. Instead, tab pages are workspaces designed to contain one or more windows, themselves viewports designed to display buffers. Buffers are Vim's equivalent of the documents in other editors and there's thankfully no built-in way to have an "always-on" list of buffers. "Thankfully" because such a feature would be just as useless as it is in those other editors.

Instead of using tab pages as document proxies — something that can't work anyway — I'd suggest you get used to Vim's buffer-based workflow.

Here is a bit of reading to get you started on the good foot.

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romainl
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2

I am also trying to do the same thing. You need to read tabline and setting-tabline if you are interested in writting your own tab lines. However, if you just want a simple one, you are free to copy this to your vimrc:

"tabline                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
if exists("+showtabline")
     function MyTabLine()
         let s = ''
         let t = tabpagenr()
         let i = 1
         while i <= tabpagenr('$')
             let buflist = tabpagebuflist(i)
             let winnr = tabpagewinnr(i)
             let s .= '%' . i . 'T'
             let s .= (i == t ? '%1*' : '%2*')
             let s .= ' '
             let s .= '|'. i . ')'
             let s .= ' %*'
             let s .= (i == t ? '%#TabLineSel#' : '%#TabLine#')
             let file = bufname(buflist[winnr - 1])
             let file = fnamemodify(file, ':p:t')
             if file == ''
                 let file = '[No Name]'
             endif
             let s .= file
             let s .= ' ' 
             let i = i + 1
         endwhile
         let s .= '%T%#TabLineFill#%='
         let s .= (tabpagenr('$') > 1 ? '%999XX' : 'X')
         return s
     endfunction
     set stal=2
     set tabline=%!MyTabLine()
endif
Weibing Chen
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