On Thu, 8 Mar 2012, Mark Wilden wrote:
On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Tim Chase wrote:
On 03/08/12 06:42, Mark Wilden wrote:
I've heard screen mentioned with Vim several times now, and I just
have to ask: How does this differ from simply having a Vim window
and a Terminal window (OS X)?
One of the biggest advantages of screen is that you can detach from
it and the re-attach from another machine.
Just to be crystal clear - that's why you would use screen, right?
That's the only reason I use `screen`, which is why I switched to a
self-written wrapper for `dtach`¹, which only has the attach/detach
functionality of `screen`.
There are no benefits if you're working locally. Is that correct?
In addition to detachability, `screen` (and `tmux`², which seems like a
"better screen" from everything I've seen) provides window-management
for terminals. So, instead of having two separate programs, you can
keep them organized into kind-of workspaces. If you're used to using
windows in Vim, it's similar.
Folks frequently have an IRC session in one screen-window, a
file-browser like Midnight Commander in another, a console mail
program like mutt/pine in another, perhaps a console music-player in
another, and then a variety of shell sessions (vim, bash, etc). I
usually crank it up like folks would use an IDE, so I have one window
for Vim, one for a general bash shell, one for testing program output,
and one for my VCS (usually git).
Yes, I'm actually pretty familiar with this whole "windows" concept. :)
It's a different "windows" concept than OSX, though. screen/tmux is
more like a tiling window manager³, except that it's internal to a
terminal, rather than the whole windowing system. One of the benefits
(of a tiling wm metaphor vs a stacking window manager) is that instead
of having windows you move around with a mouse, you can usually do the
management you need via the keyboard.
--
Best,
Ben
¹: http://dtach.sf.net/
²: http://tmux.sf.net/
³: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager
--
You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
