created July 7, 2005 · complexity basic · author Jonathan Orlev · version 5.7
For me, the most irritating thing when using the wonderful Vim is starting a second copy of Vim while a first one was already running.
For example: opening a file already open in the first Vim instance within a second instance of Vim gives an error message, because the swap file is already in use (not to mention that this might cause a loss of data).
So I added this to my vimrc. I am using gvim on Windows, but this will probably also work with gvim in other systems.
" If the v:servername ends with a number, then this is for sure a second " copy of Vim. if v:servername =~? '^.*[0-9][0-9]*$' echo "MyWarning: Another copy of gvim or Vim is probably loaded!" endif
Comments
For users running gvim on Unixes, an alternative is to always use
/usr/local/bin/gvim --remote-silent FILENAME
If gvim is already running, the file is opened there. Otherwise, a new gvim instance is started.
For interactive shell sessions, it would help to define a shorter alias, such as:
alias gvimrem='/usr/local/bin/gvim --remote-silent'
Here is a better version for the tip. This is more general, and therefore preferable:
" If the serverlist contains more than one item, than another instance of " Vim is loaded. if serverlist() =~? "\n." echo "MyWarning: Another copy of gvim or Vim is probably loaded !" endif
I agree, this serverlist() functions is working on Linux, where v:servername does not. Replace the original!
And you may also replace the operator '=~?' with '=~'
See the :RemoteOpen command from remoteopen.vim which is part of latex-suite plugin.