:terminal whee

_posts/2020-07-02-terminal-vim-terminal.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "A terminal in your editor in your terminal"
+tags:
+- vim
+---
+
+I discovered today that since version 8.1, Vim apparently supports spawning a
+terminal from within the Vim editor. This is a handy little feature that could
+make life easier for checking documentation, running tests, and so on.
+
+From [box.matto.nl](https://box.matto.nl/):
+
+
+>  With  ":terminal" you open a terminal in the current
+>  window.
+>
+>  To create a vertical split, with a terminal  in  the
+>  newly opened window, use ":vertical terminal".
+>
+>  With  some  easy  Vim  scripting  you  can  open the
+>  external URL that  is  under  the  cursor  with  the
+>  awesome  textmode  browser  w3m in a Vim terminal. I
+>  liked to have that in a vertical split.
+
+
+I have modified their function slightly to open horizontal, and automatically close the terminal when the `w3m` command exits:
+
+```vim
+function s:vertopen_url()
+     normal! "uyiW
+     let mycommand = "w3m " . @u
+     execute "terminal++close " . mycommand
+endfunction
+```
+
+
+I have utilized the use of `tmux` and its builtin `send-keys` commands to send
+interactions between terminals in my development environment. Scripting and
+integrating with a terminal from Vim is a different twist on the same use-case.
+I have only started to play with this functionality, but I'm interested to see
+what I can improve with `:terminal`.