How to scroll (move screen up/down while cursor remains fixed at same screen position) in Vim

Question

When scrolling normally on a webpage, the cursor remains at the same place on the screen while the screen shifts smoothly up/down. I would like to replicate that functionality in vim. Ctrl + Y and Ctrl + E move the screen but the cursor does not stay at the same position on screen, it stays on same row.

So far, the only thing that comes close is Ctrl + U and Ctrl + D, but this scrolls half the screen's worth in rows. This doesn't enable smooth scrolling.

Is there a built-in command for that?

Answer 1

The 'scroll' option determines the number of lines Ctrl-U and Ctrl-D scroll. The default of 0 is "half a screen"; but if you

:set scr=1

then those commands will only move you by one line. (You can get back to the default using :set scr=0.)

Note that 'scroll' option is automatically set by prefixing Ctrl-U or Ctrl-D with a count. I.e. if you do 1Ctrl-D, every further Ctrl-U or Ctrl-D will only move by one line until 'scroll' is reset.

Another possibility is 'scrolloff', which determines the minimum number of lines above and below the cursor in a window. Setting it to a ridiculous number will make sure your cursor is always in the centre of the screen. That is,

:set so=999

will de facto convert j and k into what you desired.

Finally, a binding like Christian Gibbons suggests in comments is another way to do this, if you dislike the side effects of these two methods.