Split current buffer to a new window

Recipes & Guides
1

It was irritating me, how new command causes seemingly random buffer to open up, so I created a command which creates identical copy of current window.

define-command split -params 0 -docstring \
"Creates new client with current buffer" \
%{
  new %sh{
    line=$(echo "$kak_window_range" | cut -d' ' -f 1)
    column=$(echo "$kak_window_range" | cut -d' ' -f 2)
    printf 'buffer -- %s;' "$kak_bufname"
    printf 'execute-keys %s jvt;' "$line"
    printf 'select -- %s;' "$kak_selection_desc"
    printf 'execute-keys V %s <esc>;' "$(printf "%""$column""s" | tr ' ' 'l')"
  }
}

I can’t guarantee that windows will be identical in case if your windows manager doesn’t ensure that the new kakoune window is equally sized as the original.

Personally I use tiling WM, which divides old windows space in half, to make space for the new buffer. It works great with such setup.

Edit: Took inspiration from @Screwtapello’s suggestion and also upgraded command to take in account the view’s horizontal alignment.

2

Before you’ve mentioned it, I’ve actually never noticed that new may use buffer different from the active one. That’s interesting

3

I haven’t tested this, but maybe that command could be implemented as something like:

define-command split %{
    new eval buffer %val{bufname} ';' select %val{selection}
}
1 Like
4

This looks neat, but doesn’t account for matching the view of the old window. It also reminded that my command didn’t account for view’s horizontal position.

I ended up using select approach and few other new tricks to create a better version of the split command. It should also be more readable now. Updated the original post!