Which buffer quickfix file is opened in?

Question

One thing that drives me crazy is unpredictable quickfix behaviour.

Say I am editing a file, then I split the window and would like to find something and open in that buffer.

I use :Ag whatever to fill the QuickFix and press Enter on the search result.

Expected:

File is opened in the split I use before going to QuickFix.

Actual:

File is opened in any split on the screen.

Am I missing something?

I know that you can search first and split after. I usually keep many buffers open to see the whole chain of calls/requires and I would like to insert buffers in between other ones.

Answer 1

This is a fairly widespread and well-known annoyance. There are at least two plugins which aim to address it: vim-qf and QFEnter

But, the behavior is quite predictable (cf :help quickfix.txt). If the file is already open, vim switches to it and moves to the correct line/column. Otherwise, the window directly above the quickfix window is used (and the buffer is replaced).

So aside from living with the possibly unintuitive default behavior, you have a few options:

• remap <cr> (or anything else) in the quickfix window to do something else, for example opening the item in the previous window. Example: autocmd FileType qf nnoremap <cr> :exe 'wincmd p \| '.line('.').'cc'<cr>

• use a plugin which makes similar maps

• only ever use :cc, :cnext, and :cprev, which operate in the current window (although this would requireset switchbuf=)

Answer 2

Are you using ag.vim which is depecrated? You should try ack.vim.

Other than that, are you sure that the expected window is focused?

I have these settings in my vimrc to make the split direction more "natural":

set splitbelow " Split windows below the current window
set splitright " Split windows right of the current window

Edit: From the quickfix-window help:

The file containing the error is opened in the window above the quickfix window. If there already is a window for that file, it is used instead.

It seems to open the file in the bottom right split every time, not the last used.