Focus previous tab/window when closing current

Question

I tend to open multiple tabs in vim and multiple windows within a tab.

I have a habit of traversing the code in a tree format - I open a tag in a new tab, so that my current view of the window remains unchanged. I can simply close the newly opened tab/window to resume to my previous view.

Consider a case where I have window A focused. I open a new split as window B. Now, when I close window B, it should focus the earlier window A. Currently, it always focuses the window on left side of B.

Similarly, for tab close case, it always selects the tab on the right side of tab being closed.

Is there a way to keep track of the tab/window opening sequence in vim? Then I can trace back the sequence while closing the tab/windows...
Or better, is there a vim set command option or an internal variable that handles this automatically?

Answer 1

I have written the script for this purpose.
It can be downloaded as vimball based plugin from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=5430.

Installation details:
$ wget http://www.vim.org/scripts/download_script.php?src_id=24462 -O FocusPrevious.vmb
$ vim FocusPrevious.vmb

Within vim:
:source %
:q

Restart vim

Answer 2

For the windows you could use a function which get the number of the current window, goes to the previous one and close the window of which you got the number earlier. Something like this:

function CloseAndGoToPreviousW()
    let prevWin = winnr()
    execute "wincmd p"
    execute prevWin . "wincmd q"
endfunction

You can then call the function directly or create a mapping to call it:

nnoremap <key> :call CloseAndGoToPreviousW()<CR>

Based on that I think you can do the same with the buffers with :h tabpagenr() and :h :tabclose.

Answer 3

Similarly, for tab close case, it always selects the tab on the right side of tab being closed.

These two lines force vim to go to the left on tabclose and closing a buffer will not close the window. They don't answer OP's question, but they answer the similar question that led me here.

The TabClosed autocommand now works for an arbitrary last tab. I'll leave the buffer command as is, though I may fix it later.

" Keep a list of the most recent two tabs.
let g:tablist = [1, 1]
autocmd TabLeave * let g:tablist[0] = g:tablist[1]
autocmd TabLeave * let g:tablist[1] = tabpagenr()
" When a tab is closed, return to the most recent tab.
" The way vim updates tabs, in reality, this means we must return
" to the second most recent tab.
autocmd TabClosed * exe "normal " . g:tablist[0] . "gt"

cnoremap bd<cr> b#<bar>bd#<cr>

Answer 4

Vim8 or Vim9 with the following snippet in ~/.vimrc works for me.

autocmd TabClosed * tabprevious