I prefer the tags to have a full height window off to the right, most of the time. This script and mappings give both.

" preview window... to get it to open vert right, or horiz as desired
function PreviewTag(top)
  "by MW
  set previewheight=25
  exe "silent! pclose"
  if &previewwindow " don't do this in the preview window
    return
  endif
  let w = expand("<cword>") " get the word under cursor
  exe "ptjump " . w
  " if any non False arg, open in simple horiz window so simply return
  if a:top
    return
  endif
  " otherwise, make it vertical
  exe "silent! wincmd P"
  if &previewwindow " if we really get there...
    if has("folding")
      silent! .foldopen " don't want a closed fold
    endif
    wincmd L " move preview window to the left
    wincmd p " back to caller
    if !&previewwindow " got back
      wincmd _
      " make caller full size (I use minibufexplorer and for some reason
      " the window is altered by the preview window split and manipulation
      " so wincmd _ sets it back... your mileage may vary
    endif
  endif
endfunction

" right hand window full height preview window
inoremap <C-]> <Esc>:call PreviewTag(0)<CR>
nnoremap <C-]> :call PreviewTag(0)<CR>
" simple "above the caller" preview window,
nnoremap <M-]> :call PreviewTag(1)<CR>
inoremap <M-]> <Esc>:call PreviewTag(1)<CR>
" close preview
noremap <M-[> <Esc>:pc<CR>

Here's what I use for Python and Quixote (python web framework) exctags generation (FreeBSD user here) - ptl files are Quixote Python Template Language files, essentially Python, and this exctags cmd line builds an appropriate tags file:

function WritePythonTags()
  let foo = system("/usr/bin/ctags --langmap=python:.py.ptl *.py *.ptl")
endfunction

" attempt to write / update tags file on every save...
" better way? not sure I care, its fast enuf.
au BufWritePost *.py,*.ptl call WritePythonTags()

CommentsEdit

See script#1343 to automatically update tags files upon saving.