Re: Opening vim in new xterm+screen window in same session

[Michael Parson]

On 2015-08-12 06:35, Dhyanesh wrote:
> Hi
>
> I typically have a single screen session to which I connect using
> screen -x. Whenever I want to edit a file with vim, I'd like to:
>
> 1. Open a new xterm.
> 2. Connect to the screen session.
> 3. Create a new screen window and start vim in it.
>
> Ideally I'd like the following command to work (from within a screen
> session):
>
> xterm -e screen vim foo.cc
>
> However, it partially works, the new xterm is created and has the STY
> variable. Thus screen opens a new window in that same session and
> starts vim. However, the new xterm window doesn't connect to that
> session. Any thoughts on why this happens? I'm using screen version
> 4.02.

When I try that command with screen 4.02.01, I don't get a new xterm, 
but I do get the new screen window running vim, which isn't selected, I 
get my prompt back in the window I typed the command in.

In any case, here's what I do, I tend to work in one xterm with one 
screen session.

All shell my shell bits assume you're running bash, might work in ksh or 
zsh, you'll have to make adjustments if you're in tcsh.

In my .vimrc:

" If we're in screen, rename the current window to the filename we're 
editing
if &term =~ '^screen'
  set title
  " VimTip #1126
  set t_ts=
  set t_fs=
  let &titleold = fnamemodify(&shell, ":t")
endif

Then as a bash function:

svim () {
        screen -X msgwait 0
        screen vim $*
        screen -X msgwait 4
}

You can put that in your .bashrc, .bash_profile, in a separate file that 
gets sourced by one of those, etc.

Now, when I want to edit a file:

svim foo.cc

This will open a new screen window running vim on the named file.  Vim 
will see that it's running in a screen session and rename that window to 
be the name of the file, which makes it easy to see in your window list 
(with ^A-").  When you're done and exit vim, that window auto-closes and 
returns you to the previously used screen window, which, if you've not 
done any window switching, will be the one you originally ran the 
command in.

Now, for extra fun, you can now do things like:

for i in *.cc, do svim $i ; done

This will open a new screen window running vim for each file matching 
the glob (*.cc), all named for the file that is being edited.

--
Michael Parson
Austin, TX
KF5LGQ