Switch to specific tab in Vim like in Firefox?

Question

How do I make Vim switch to a certain tab when I hit Alt+# ? For example, to get to the third tab, I'd hit Alt+3 (like the behavior in Firefox).

Edit: also, how can I make Control + tab == gt, Control + shift + tab == gT

Answer 1

:nmap <M-1> :tabnext 1<CR>
:nmap <M-2> :tabnext 2<CR>
etc.

See :h :tabnext. Note that by default you can also do Ngt in normal mode where N is the number of the tab you want (starting with 1).

Answer 2

This works for me (copied and pasted from my rc):

" Tab Control (others)
 map <A-1> 1gt
 map <A-2> 2gt
 map <A-3> 3gt
 map <A-4> 4gt
 map <A-5> 5gt
 map <A-6> 6gt
 map <A-7> 7gt
 map <A-8> 8gt
 map <A-9> 9gt

Also further goodness:

map <C-Right> <ESC>:tabnext<CR>
map <C-Left> <ESC>:tabprev<CR>
map <C-t> <ESC>:tabnew<CR>

You may want to change it to nmap like the example above to restrict the usage a little better I've been a bit lazy in that respect.

Missed your edit next tab with Ctl-t would be:

map <C-t> :tabnext<CR>

I don't think the tabprevious mapping is possible in vim due to the way it handles uppercase characters see:

http://www.nabble.com/Maping-Ctrl-Shift-s-problems-td22918941.html

To save some time I spent hunting around when I wanted this

Answer 3

Getting this to work in urxvt proved difficult. Eventually I settled on using the folowing bindings:

:nnoremap <Esc>1 gt1
:nnoremap <Esc>2 gt2
:nnoremap <Esc>3 gt3
:nnoremap <Esc>4 gt4
:nnoremap <Esc>5 gt5
:nnoremap <Esc>6 gt6
:nnoremap <Esc>7 gt7
:nnoremap <Esc>8 gt8
:nnoremap <Esc>9 gt9
:nnoremap <Esc>0 gt0

The problem was that Alt number combinations get bound to escape prefixed numbers by default in rxvt. Originally I managed by having the following in my ~/.vimrc file:

:nnoremap <M-1> gt1
:nnoremap <M-2> gt2
...

This was made to work by using the following to '~/.Xdefaults':

URxvt*meta8: true

This forces rxvt to use the 8th character bit when Alt is pressed, which is what Vim uses to detect the Alt state. Setting this in your .Xdefaults file enables the 8th bit to be set. However, this causes problems in other programs, such as irssi running over screen, hence my suggested solution.