vi - How to effectively work with multiple files in Vim

Question

I've started using Vim to develop Perl scripts and am starting to find it very powerful.

One thing I like is to be able to open multiple files at once with:

vi main.pl maintenance.pl

and then hop between them with:

:n
:prev

and see which file are open with:

:args

And to add a file, I can say:

:n test.pl

which I expect would then be added to my list of files, but instead it wipes out my current file list and when I type :args I only have test.pl open.

So how can I add and remove files in my args list?

Answer 1

Why not use tabs (introduced in Vim 7)? You can switch between tabs with :tabn and :tabp, With :tabe <filepath> you can add a new tab; and with a regular :q or :wq you close a tab. If you map :tabn and :tabp to your F7/F8 keys you can easily switch between files.

If there are not that many files or you don't have Vim 7 you can also split your screen in multiple files: :sp <filepath>. Then you can switch between splitscreens with Ctrl+W and then an arrow key in the direction you want to move (or instead of arrow keys, w for next and W for previous splitscreen)