path: root/home/.vim/doc/winmanager.txt

*winmanager*       Plugin for a classical Windows style IDE for Vim 6.0
                         For Vim version 6.0.
              Last Change: Sun Mar 31 11:00 PM 2002 PST

                            By Srinath Avadhanula
                            (srinath@fastmail.fm)

                                                         *winmanager-plugin*

winmanager.vim is a plugin which implements a classical windows type IDE in
Vim-6.0, where the directory and buffer browsers are displayed in 2 windows on
the left and the current editing is done on the right. When you open up a new
vim window, simply type in :WMToggle. This will start up winmanager.

Note This plugin is available only if 'compatible' is not set
     You can avoid loading this plugin by setting the "loaded_winmanager"
     variable >
        :let loaded_winmanager = 1

{Vi does not have any of this}
===========================================================================
OVERVIEW                                              *winmanager-overview*

|winmanager-installing|  Please follow these instructions for installing
                         winmanager. 

|winmanager-customizing| Describes ways of customizing the window layout, i.e
                         how to club various explorers into groups, how to
                         change their relative position, etc.

|winmanager-details|     details of using winmanager. keyboard shortcuts
                         and other usage details.

|winmanager-commands|    commands provided to the user. its useful to
                         set keyboard shortcuts to these commands.

|winmanager-settings|    settings (typically made in ~/.vimrc) which
                         affect the behavior of winmanager.

|winmanager-adding|      one of the most important new features of this
                         version is the creation of a framework whereby adding
                         other plugins like explorer.vim or bufexplorer.vim to
                         winmanager. This section describes briefly the
                         implementation of winmanager and then describes how
                         to add a new plugin to winmanager

|add-local-help|         how to use this text file as a vim help file.
|winmanager-bug|         bug reports are welcome.
|winmanager-thanks|      thanks to the many people who helped!

===========================================================================
UPDATES                                                *winmanager-updates*

The official releases can be found at: >
    http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?script_id=95
However, I will only update the vim.sf.net version of winmanager.zip in case
of a major bug or new feature. For small (and not so bothersome) bug-fixes, I
will put the latest version at: >
    http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~srinath/vim/winmanager-2.0.htm
and also announce it in vim@vim.org when an update occurs.
Therefore if you want to keep to be kept abreast of updates, you could
check occassionally at vim@vim.org. (you can also use your mail server's
filtering capability to effectively subscribe to the announcement).

============================================================================
INSTALLING                                          *winmanager-installing*

winmanager.vim should start working as soon as you restart vim after unzipping
the .zip file you got this from into ~/.vim (unix) or ~\vimfiles (dos)

winmanager only recognizes plugins whose name appears in the global variable >
    g:winManagerWindowLayout
<  
By default this global variable has the value >
    g:winManagerWindowLayout = 'FileExplorer,TagsExplorer|BufExplorer'
<
(which is the value which winmanager uses if its not set in the user's .vimrc)

This global variable is responsible for making winmanager recognize the
existence of the explorers and simultaneously custome the window layout.  See
the next section for how to set this variable for various custom layouts of
winmanager.

============================================================================
CUSTOMIZING                                         *winmanager-customizing*

The layout of winmanager is controlled by changing the value of the
"g:winManagerWindowLayout" variable. The general form of this variable is
>
   g:winManagerWindowLayout =
   'Group1_Member1,Group1_Member2|Group2_Member_1,Group2_Member_2'
<
i.e, explorer "groups" are seperated by the '|' character. Within each group,
individual explorer plugin names are seperated by the comma (',') character.
What winmanager does is display only 1 member from each group in a window. The
user can go to a window and press <C-n> to display the next explorer belonging
to that group. This ability to "group" windows is valuable to preserve screen
real-estate by using them only as needed.

Thus for the default value of 'g:winManagerWindowLayout', winmanager will
split the vim window as follows:
        +-----------+-------------------+
        |           |                   |
        | File      |                   |
        | explorer  |    File being     |
        |           |     edited        |
        |           |                   |
        +-----------+                   |
        | Buffer    |                   |
        | explorer  |                   |
        |           |                   |
        +-----------+-------------------+

The user can go the [File List] window and press <C-n> to goto the
'TagsExplorer' view. 

Removing a plugin name from the 'g:winManagerWindowLayout' variable means
winmanager no longer sees that variable.

============================================================================
COMMANDS                                               *winmanager-commands*

:WMToggle                 :toggles the visibility of winmanager. This can
                           also be used to start winmanager for the first
                           time. A handy mapping is: >
            :map <c-w><c-t> :WMToggle<cr> 
<                          mnemonic: window-toggle : <c-W><c-T>

:FirstExplorerWindow      :directly takes you to the first explorer window
                           from the top left corner which is visible. >
            :map <c-w><c-f> :FirstExplorerWindow<cr>
<                          mnemonic: window-first  : <c-W><c-F>

:BottomExplorerWindow     :directly takes you to the last explorere window
                           from the top-left which is visible. >
            :map <c-w><c-b> :BottomExplorerWindow<cr>
<                          mnemonic: window-last   : <c-W><c-B>

NOTE: winmanager does not provide any mappings by default. These have to set
in the user's .vimrc if you want to use mappings.

============================================================================
SETTINGS                                               *winmanager-settings*

The values of the following global variables should be set in your .vimrc
file if you want a different value than the default:

g:persistentBehaviour: if set to 0, then as soon as you quit all the files
    and only the explorer windows are the ones left, vim will quit. the
    default is 1, which means that the explorer windows persist even if
    they are the only ones visible.

g:winManagerWidth: the width of the explorer areas. 
    (default 25)

g:defaultExplorer:  If you want winmanager to assume the functioning of the
    default explorer.vim which ships with vim, set this variable to 0.
    (default 1). If this variable is set to 1, then winmanager will behave as
    follows:
    . if the user starts off vim with a command such as
      ":vim some/dir/" then winmanager starts off the window layout with
      FileExplorer at the top left window. as of now it changes the
      g:windowLayout variable so that file explorer appears in the top left
      window.
    . if on the other hand the user does ":e some/dir/" while _inside_ vim,
      then the behavior is consistent with the original behavior of the
      explorer.vim plugin which ships with vim, i.e, the directory is opened
      in a buffer and the user can use that to open a file in that window.
    Note that the commands ":Explore" and ":Sexplore" are still available if
    you set this variable to 1.
    winfileexplorer.vim, the modification of explorer.vim which ships with
    this version is different from the standard explorer.vim in that it has
    display caching. i.e, the directory is read and sorted only the first
    time. From the second time on, the directory list is cached in a script
    variable so display is faster.

                                            *winmanager-fileexplorer-settings*
See |explorer| for details. 
NOTE: Some of the settings used in explorer.vim are not utlized in
winmanager.
                                            *winmanager-bufexplorer-settings*
g:bufExplorerMaxHeight: the buffer list window dynamicall rescales itself to
    occupy only the minimum space required to display all the windows. you
    can set a maximum number of lines for this window. (defualt 15)
See |bufexplorer| for details on additional options. 
NOTE: Some of the settings used in bufexplorer.vim are not utlized in
winmanager.

=============================================================================
DETAILED HELP                                            *winmanager-details*

When winmanager starts up, it divides up the whole vim window into 2
"regions". The region on the left is the "explorer area" where the various
explorer plugins are displayed. The region on the right is the "file editing
area", where the user works on his current editing session. 

        +--------+-------------------+
        |        |                   |
        |        |      2(i)         |
        | 1(i)   |                   |
        |        +-------------------+
        |        |                   |
        +--------+      2(ii)        |
        | 1(ii)  |                   |
        +--------+-------------------+

The explorer area (area 1) might contain multiple windows each of which might
contain multiple explorers. In the default configuration (for
g:winManagerWindowLayout = 'FileExplorer,TagsExplorer|BufExplorer'), the first
window can be thought of as containing 2 explorers, the file explorer plugin
and the tags explorer plugin, while the bottom window contains bufexplorer by
itself.

When a window contains multiple explorers, then the user can cycle between
them by pressing <c-n> (mnemonic: next) or <c-p> (mnemonic: previous). 

This section describes the various keyboard shortcuts for the 3 plugins which
are used with winmanager by default.
NOTE: Other plugins might be distributed as add-ins to winmanager. In that
case, please refer to the help which ships with that plugin.
 
1. File Explorer plugin
This plugin displays the current directory. Its a modification of the standard
explorer.vim which ships with vim6.0. The following keyboard shortcuts are
available with this plugin:
<enter>          if on a directory, enters it and displays it in the same
                 area. If on a file, then opens it in the File Editing Area.
                 Attempts to open in the same window as the one visited
                 before, otherwise split open a new window horizontally. if
                 this sounds a bit confusing, it isnt. its the most intuitive
                 behaviour that one expects.
<2-leftmouse>   (doubleclick) the same as <enter>
<tab>            open the file or directory in a new window in the FileEditing
                 area. 
c                change the pwd to the directory currently displayed 
C                change the currently displayed directory to pwd (converse of
                 c) this helps in changing to different drives in windows.
                 i.e, if you are currently on the c: drive and you want to
                 change to the d: drive, you will have to do 
                 cd d:\
                 and then press 'C' in the file explorer area.
s                select sort field (size, date, name) 
r                reverse direction of sort 
f                add current directory to list of favorites.
R                rename file 
D                delete file (or range of files in visual mode)
-                move up one level
<F5>             refresh the file list

2. Buffer Explorer plugin
See |bufexplorer-usage| for details.
NOTE: In addition to those shortcuts, winmanager adds the following:
<tab>             Opens the buffer under the cursor in a split window even if
                  the current buffer is not modified.

This window is dynamically rescaled and re-displayed. i.e, when a new window
opens somehwere, the buffer list is automatically updated. also, it tries to
occupy the minimum possible space required to display the files. 

3. File Editing Area
The area where normal editing takes place. The commands in the File Explorer
and Buffer Explorer shouldnt affect the layout of the windows here. Some
mappings which I find useful (which should be placed in your .vimrc if you
plan on using WManager often) is 
>
    map <c-w><c-b> :BottomExplorerWindow<cr>
    map <c-w><c-f> :FirstExplorerWindow<cr>
    map <c-w><c-t> :WMToggle<cr>

Pressing CTRL-W-B should then take you directly to the last explorer window
Similarly pressing CTRL-W-F should take you to the first explorer window.
CTRL-W-T will toggle between the winmanager visible and invisible.

=============================================================================
ADDING NEW PLUGINS                                        *winmanager-adding*

This section is of interest only to people who might want to extend winmanager
by adding other plugins to it. The casual user can skip it.

One of the most important new features of winmanager2.x is the ability to let
other users add IDE type plugins to winmanager.vim with a minimum of effort.
The way winmanager ships, it usually contains the following plugins:
>
    (FileExplorer, TagsExplorer)
    (BufExplorer)

i.e, FileExplorer and TagsExplorer occupy one window as a single group, while
BufExplorer occupies another window. "Adding" a plugin means that you will be
able to add a seperate IDE plugin, (call it "YourPlugin" henceforth) either to
one of these groups or seperately by itself. This section describes how to
accomplish this. Although the section is somewhat lengthy, please rest assured
that its really quite simple to do. Have a look at |wintagexplorer|.vim for a
small plugin which accomplishes this.

To better understand the process, its helpful to give a short description of
the workings of winmanager. When a user wants to use your plugin, he
"registers" it with winmanager, i.e he adds the "name" of the plugin to the
variable g:winManagerWindowLayout in his .vimrc as:

    " this line goes in the user's .vimrc
    let g:winManagerWindowLayout = "FileExplorer,TagsExplorer|YourPlugin"

When winmanager starts up, it remembers the string "YourPlugin" internally as
the plugins "name". (The reason for making this a part of the user's .vimrc
is that that way, he can customize the window layout according to his
preferences).

In addition to registering, the plugin itself initializes a variable called
the "title" which starts with the name, such as: >

    " this line goes in your script file.
    let g:YourPlugin_title = "[My Plugin Title]"

<
NOTE: Just like the rest of the hooks provided by your plugin, this global
variable name is formed according the rule: g:<YourPluginName>_title.

When winmanager starts up, it performs the following 2 actions:
    1. It opens a new file with the "title" provided by the plugin. This
       automatically ensures that the same buffer is opened for multiple
       invokations of the plugin.
       NOTE: It is very important for this reason that the plugin's name be
       distinct so that there is a low (ideally zero) probability of a file
       with the same name existing on a user's system.
    2. It modifies the "name" string (in this case "YourPlugin") to form 
       "call YourPlugin_Start()" and then |exec|s this string. Thus winmanager
       communicates with your plugin by using a number of such "hooks" or
       global functions which all start with the string "YourPlugin" which are
       defined in the script file you create.

In order to enable the dynamic nature of winmanager, where you can have your
plugin change its display every time a |BufEnter| or |BufDelete| event occurs,
it is necessary to provide a few other hooks. Every time a BufEnter or
BufDelete event occurs, winmanager makes a loop over all the visible buffers.
Then it "refreshes" the display of that plugin if it is "invalid". The
following paragraphs describe the hooks that have to be provided to enable
this.

                                                           *winmanager-hooks*

The following is a list of hooks which should be provided. A few of them are
optional. Consider the case where you want to add a plugin which you have
named "YourPlugin". In the following discussion, a "hook" simply refers to a
globally visible function which is formed according to the rule that it start
with the string "YourPlugin_", where "YourPlugin" is the name of your plugin.

                                                       *winmanager-hook-start* 
YourPlugin_Start()       This function is called during initialization.  It
{Mandatory}              can be assumed (and _should_ be) that the focus is
                         already in the buffer where stuff needs to be
                         displayed. i.e, the plugin shouldnt open some other
                         buffer during this function. (i.e, commands such as
                         ":e", ":vsplit", ":wincmd h" etc in this stage are
                         bad. If however, you absolutely need to switch
                         buffers or something which will cause |BufEnter| or
                         |BufDelete| events, then you need to temporarily
                         switch winmanager off by using
                         |WinManagerSuspendAUs|)

                                                    *winmanager-hook-isvalid*
YourPlugin_IsValid()     winmanager is dynamic in the sense that it allows the
{Mandatory}              plugins to change their displays when a BufEnter event
                         occurs. At each BufEnter event, winmanager will cycle
                         through all the visible explorers asking them if
                         their display is "valid". If it isn't, then they will
                         be redrawn by calling the next function.

                         For plugins such as bufexplorer which change with
                         every BufEnter, it is sufficient to make this always
                         return 1. For plugins such as fileexplorer, the
                         display never changes with the BufEnter even. hence
                         in its case, it will always return 0.

                                                     *winmanager-hook-refresh*
YourPlugin_Refresh()      If the YourPlugin_IsValid() function returns 0, then
{Optional}                this function is called to update the display. if the
                          first function always returns 1, then this function
                          need not be defined.
                          NOTE: It is not clear at this time whether this
                          function is really necessary. It might be obsoleted
                          in the future. Future versions might call the
                          _Start() function instead.
                          NOTE: It has been obsoleted as of version 2.1

                                                      *winmanager-hook-resize*
YourPlugin_ReSize()       The plugins can also be dynamically resizable.  (the
{Optional}                current bufexplorer which ships with the winmanager
                          exhibits this behavior).  If a plugin creates such a
                          function, then it will be called after its Refresh()
                          function. The reason for not letting the plugin make
                          this a part of its Refresh() function is that
                          sometimes resizing is not allowed, such as in
                          instances where there is no window above or below the
                          plugin to take the slack of a resize.


In addition, the plugin should also initialize the following global variable

                                                       *winmanager-hook-title*
g:YourPlugin_title        This is the name of the buffer associated with
                          this plugin. The reason for a title in addition to a
                          name is that the name should be such that a global
                          function of that name can be defined.  However, the
                          title can be more descriptive and contain spaces
                          etc. For example, the present distribution of
                          FileExplorer has the title "[File List]". Also,
                          winmanager opens a file with this name (using an
                          equivalent of ":e g:YourPlugin_title"), which
                          automatically ensures that new buffers are not eaten
                          up in multiple invokations of winmanager, toggling
                          visibility of buffers, etc. 
                          NOTE: It is very important for this reason that the
                          plugin's name be distinct so that there is a low
                          (ideally zero) probability of a file with the same
                          name existing on a user's system. 

In addition to YourPlugin providing winmanager with hooks, winmanager also
provides the following hooks for use by YourPlugin:

                                                        *WinManagerFileEdit*
WinManagerFileEdit({filename}, {split})
                          This function _must_ be used when the plugin wants
                          to open a new file in the file editing area for
                          editing. Its not sufficient to do something like
                          ":wincmd p" and then ":e filename", because first of
                          all the ":wincmd p" command gets screwed
                          (unfortunately) in the presence of winmanager
                          because of the (sometimes) large movement winmanager
                          does over all visible windows to maintain the
                          dynamic nature. Secondly, doing a simple ":e
                          filename" will not preserve the @# and the @%
                          registers properly, causing handy commands such as
                          |CTRL-^| to totally mis-behave.

                          The first argument should be (preferably) the
                          (complete) name of the file to be opened (including
                          the full path to it if possible).  The second
                          argument decides whether winmanager should attempt
                          to open the file in the same window as the last
                          window or to split a new window to open the file.

                                                     *WinManagerSuspendAUs*
WinManagerSuspendAUs()    This makes winmanager stop responding to the
                          |BufEnter| or |BufDelete| autocommands like it
                          normally does. Please use this function with care.
                          You will need to use this when you are performing
                          some action which causes these events but you dont
                          want to have winmanager go through the whole
                          isvalid/refresh cycle. NOTE: Take care to definitely
                          reset the behavior by using the next function.

                                                     *WinManagerResumeAUs*
WinManagerResumeAUs()     This is the converse of |WinManagerSuspendAUs()|. It
                          makes winmanager start responding to events with the
                          usual isvalid/refresh cycle.

                                                   *WinManagerForceReSize* 
WinManagerForceReSize()   Normally, winmanager calls the YourPlugin_ReSize()
                          function after the YourPlugin_Refresh(). However,
                          this happens only every |BufEnter| event. When the
                          plugin performs some function which requires it to
                          resize even when there was no |BufEnter| or
                          |BufDelete| event, use this function. Please avoid
                          making a call to YourPlugin_ReSize() because a
                          number of safety checks have to be performed before
                          a resizing is "legal".
                          
Finally, if you do plan on making an addin to winmanager, feel free to contact
me for help/comments/suggestions. You might also want to take a look at: >
    http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~srinath/vim/explorerSample.vim
for a simple template of an add-in plugin.

=============================================================================
BUGS                                                         *winmanager-bug*

Please send any comments for improvements or bug-reports to >
    srinath@fastmail.fm
If the bug is repeatable, then it will be of great help if a short description
of the events leading to the bug are also given.

Note "I dont like winmanager" is not a bug report, only an opinion ;-)

=============================================================================
THANKS                                                    *winmanager-thanks*

I am really grateful to all those who emailed me with bug-reports and comments
for improvement. Most of all, a huge thanks to Xiangjiang Ma for his enormous
support and extremeley helpful QA. 

Other people who helped greatly:
   Madoka Machitani: fixed a couple of typos and gave some ideas for making
      things more robust.
   Colin Dearing: gave many useful suggestions for improvement which lead to
      the fast redraw capability of winmanager
   Jeff Lanzarotta: for agreeing to make changes to bufexplorer.vim so that
      bufexplorer.vim would be compatible with the latest version of
      winmanager.vim

   and finally all the great support I got from vim@vim.org and comp.editors
   helped a lot.


vim:tw=78:et:ts=4:ft=help:norl: