How to open a terminal in new tab from VIM?

Question

When I'm working with lets say 4 files, all are open in tabs(VIM). I want to save the changes and compile it without having to close the tabs, i.e I want to open a terminal in new tab along with the existing 4?

How should I do this in VIM?

Answer 1

:tab ter

opens a terminal in a new tab instead of opening it in a new window as :ter does. You can also use the equivalent, longer :tab terminal form.

Credits to user wolloda in this Reddit post.

Extra information

• Terminating the shell with Ctrl-d or exit closes the terminal buffer.

• Ctrl-w N or Ctrl-\ Ctrl-n put the buffer in the terminal-normal mode: Keystrokes are not forwarded to the shell, but are used by Vim as in a normal buffer (although the shell job is still running). Then you can use gt to change tabs, type Ex commands such as :ls, etc. To bring the terminal buffer back to life, i, a, ...

• If you are going to map this, I recommend using :tab ter++kill=hup, so that when you :qa the terminal job does not prevent Vim from quitting. And this is the signal normal terminal emulators send to its jobs when closed anyway.

• For terminal mode mappings, use tnoremap, for example

  tnoremap <S-Tab> <C-W>:tabprevious<CR>
  tnoremap <C-N>   <C-W>N
  

More information on :help :terminal and :help :tab.

Answer 2

In 2019, vim now has a Terminal mode.

:help terminal

For example, you can use it like this.

# go to terminal-job mode
:terminal

# go to terminal-normal mode
ctrl-w N

# go back to terminal-job mode
i

# open terminal in new tab
:tab terminal

Answer 3

A more vim like way of doing this would be to use :make

:make

• :make will execute the 'makeprg'. It defaults to make which is great of C projects
• After running :make the quickfix list will be contain any errors.
• Set your compiler via the :compiler command.
• Extra parameter can be passed like so :make foo-command
• Current filename can be represented by %. e.g. :make %

quickfix list

• Use :cnext and :cprev to move between your errors.
• :copen to open up the quickfix list in a window (:cclose to close)
• :cwindow to open quickfix list window only if there are errors
• May want to use better mappings for :cnext and friends. I suggest Tim Pope's unimpaired plugin

Alternatives and Plugins

• Just use <c-z> to suspend vim and run your build system. (Cons: loose out on the quickfix list)
• Use :! to compile. (Same cons as suspending) e.g. :!make
• Syntastic is a syntax checking system that checks files on save
• Dispatch can be used to run things in the background. Great for test suites
• As @brettanomyces mentioned you may want to consider terminal multiplexers like tmux or screen.
• SingleComplile tries and takes some of the work out of using :make

Conclusion

If you are just starting out I would suggest you learn how to use :make and the quickfix list. There is a nice Vimcast episode that intros the quickfix list: Search multiple files with :vimgrep. Additionally Syntastic is a great way to get up and running with linters quickly.

Aside about tabs

Vim's tabs are not like most text editors tab. They are more like viewports into a group of windows/splits. Additionally, Vim is buffer centric, not tab centric like most editors. Therefore using features like the quickfix list is often easier without tabs (See :h 'switchbuf if you must use tabs). Vim's tabs often get in the way of using a splits as there are better window and buffer navigation commands available. I personally have many files open (sometimes 100+) use no tabs and use on average 1-2 splits without any issue. Bottom line: Learn to use buffers effectively.

For more help see the following:

:h :make
:h 'makeprg
:h quickfix
:h :cnext
:h :cope

Answer 4

Vim 8.1 now has a built in terminal that can be opened with the :term command. This provides much more complete integration with the rest of the Vim features.

---

Original Answer:

I would suggest looking at tmux or screen. I use tmux myself and along with vim-tmux-navigator moving between the terminal and vim is very easy.

Answer 5

For anyone using NeoVim:

The highest voted answer uses :tab ter. This doesn't work on NeoVim (at least for me). However, it's still fairly simple:

:tabe term://bash

tabe is open a new tab and edit file.

term:// is a NeoVim way of opening a terminal

bash is the kind of shell you want to use (e.g. I use zsh, so my command is actually :tabe term://zsh)

Some helpful commands that I created:

" open terminal
if has('nvim')
    command Terminal vsplit term://zsh
    command TerminalTab tabe term://zsh
else
    command Terminal vert term
    command TerminalTab tab ter
endif

Answer 6

Another way

Ctrl-w :

That gets me to the command line, then one can enter tablast tabnext or tabprevious

or the short versions tabl, tabn, tabp

Or this way:

Ctrl-w gt and Ctrl-w gT (Next tab and Previous Tab)

Or Ctrl-w Number gt (for a specific tab)

That works too.