Quitting Vifm
Preserving runtime state across sessions[edit]
As described in Configuration model, Vifm can store some information between
invocations in vifminfo
file. What exactly is stored depends on the value of
'vifminfo'
option. The option enumerates values elements of run-time
state that can be saved on exit and restored on startup. It works this way:
- On exit Vifm saves the items set in the
'vifminfo'
option to the vifminfo file. - On startup Vifm loads whatever was previously stored in vifminfo file (thus
'vifminfo'
controls what's restored indirectly).
By default only bookmarks are stored.
Below is the table of all possible values. Note those marked as obsolete, they might be removed
in future versions (for a good reason: they don't fit into usual way configuration files are used; it's better
to put commands that correspond to these items into vifmrc
).
Value | Default | Description | |
---|---|---|---|
bookmarks | Yes | Bookmarks, except special ones like '< and '> .
| |
tui | No | State of the user interface (sorting, number of windows, quick view state, active view). | |
state | No | File name and dot filters and terminal multiplexers integration state. | |
cs | No | Primary color scheme. | |
savedirs | No | Save last visited directory (requires dhistory ).
| |
dhistory | No | Directory history. | |
chistory | No | Command line history. | |
shistory | No | Search history (/ and ? commands).
| |
phistory | No | Prompt history. | |
fhistory | No | Local filter history. | |
dirstack | No | Directory stack (see :dirs , :pushd , :popd ).
| |
registers | No | Registers content. | |
Obsolete | |||
options | No | All options that can be set with the :set command. | |
filetypes | No | Associated programs and viewers. | |
commands | No | User defined commands. |
These are not always trivial to combine, the next table describes how Vifm does it.
Value | Merging | ||
---|---|---|---|
bookmarks | Newer bookmark wins (they are timestamped). | ||
tui state cs |
Completely overwritten. | ||
savedirs | No special treatment required. | ||
dhistory chistory shistory phistory fhistory |
Previous history items are append to history of current instance. | ||
dirstack | Directory stack of current instance overwrites previous stack, unless stack of current session is empty. | ||
registers | Registers content adds up. | ||
Obsolete | |||
options | Completely overwritten. | ||
filetypes | Added up. | ||
commands | Added up. |
Remembering last visited directories of panes[edit]
Without previous state (e.g. by default or on first start up) and with no arguments provided Vifm starts with both directories set to the current directory of a shell.
With previous state, when 'vifminfo'
contains both
dhistory
and savedirs
, Vifm reuses top-most items
of panes' directory history.
However, specifying directories on the command-line overwrites previous state.
Quitting Vifm started in file picker mode (e.g. from Vim plugin)[edit]
When -f
command-line argument is given to Vifm, it starts acting
like file picker. Most of commands work as usual, but instead of opening files
Vifm:
- Stores selected files (or current file when selection is empty) in place accessible by invoker (see below).
- Quits.
And quiting Vifm by user causes empty list of files to be written, so that output file always contains list of selected files (which is empty in case of abortion of file picking).
Selected files are stored in main configuration directory (~/.vifm/
by default) in file named vimfiles
. Each file name is stored on a
new line (which means that file names containing new line characters won't work
properly).
Usage example[edit]
Here is an example how this special mode can be used from a shell. Say, one wants to open file in in Vim, but it's easier to pick it with Vifm rather than writing path. It's also might be desirable to get process tree like
shell --> vim
instead of
shell --> vifm --> vim
i.e. use Vifm to pick a file and close it afterwards. It could as simple as the following one-liner in Bash:
vifm -f && [ -s ~/.vifm/vimfiles ] && xargs --arg-file ~/.vifm/vimfiles -d '\n' vim
# or
vifm -f && xargs --no-run-if-empty --arg-file ~/.vifm/vimfiles -d '\n' vim
Where [ -s "path" ]
checks that file specified by the
path
exists and has non-zero size.
xargs passes each line of the file as a
separate argument to Vim.