How do I open a shell in only one tab in Vim?

Question

I usually work on tabs in Vim, and on many occasions, I end up requiring a shell to do run some command, etc. (Escape -> :!sh). Is there any way I can open the shell in only one tab in Vim? I would like to be able to switch between tabs containing the files I'm editing, and the shell. Right now, when I type in :!sh, all the tabs go away, and are replaced by the shell.

Answer 1

UPDATE AS OF VIM 8 and 9: Vim now has an in-built terminal. It works reasonably on most OSes (at least far more consistently than terminal extensions). For the question at hand. :tab teminal does the job pefectly. The workarounds are now only needed for Vim 7 and lower.

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As AI.G. said neovim is an option, it has a built in terminal emulator. Yet, if you are not afraid of using a python based plugin in Vim, have a look at the conque plugin.

conque can not only run a terminal but almost any interactive command.

You can even exit insert mode in the shell (or lynx as in the example) and use visual mode to yank into a register.

conque requires python, and, if you are not on a *nix OS, also requires cygwin.

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There are some issues with keybindings if you try to run Vim, inside a shell inside a Vim tab.

Answer 2

You can also have a look at vimshell.vim, which is another shell you can run inside vim.

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Otherwise I tend to use <C-Z> for the Vim<-->shell quick switch.

This puts vim in the background and let you run commands your shell. It's quicker than opening a new tab a new shell. fg can be used to go back to Vim.

Bonus: If you're using zsh you can also put this snippet in your configuration:

fancy-ctrl-z () {
    if [[ $#BUFFER -eq 0 ]]; then
        BUFFER="fg"
        zle accept-line
    else
        zle push-input
        zle clear-screen
    fi
}

zle -N fancy-ctrl-z
bindkey '^Z' fancy-ctrl-z

This will call fg if you press <C-Z> and there is a job in the background. So you can <C-Z> <C-Z> quickly.

Source

Answer 3

EDIT: Simpler way is to do :tab terminal, thanks to comment on this post

ORIGINAL ANSWER:

I know this is an old post, but if anyone arrived here from google, as I did, you can open a new tab with :tabe, type :terminal, which will open a shell in that tab, and then close the empty editor with :q

Not sure if there's a more elegant solution, but this achieves what is asked without any plugins. :terminal Was introduced to vim in vim 8