Re: Two column layout

[Chris Jones]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 11:30:53AM EST, Rhys Ulerich wrote:

> Is it possible to have two panes hold a single window (much like a two
> column layout in a magazine)?

> It'd be sweet to have

> A|D
> B|E
> C|F

> where A, B, C, D, E, F are sequential lines from, say, a text editor
> and | is a screen split.  Especially on a wide-but-not-tall monitor.

Not sure about your use case, but if I understand correctly, you can
also do this in Vim:

$ vim file.txt

CTRL-W v              split window ‘vertically’
CTRL-F                page down right half-window one screen worth
:set scrollbind       
CTRL-W h              cursor to left half-window
:set scrollbind       bind both half-windows' scrolling

You can now use the usual page, half-page, etc. scrollling keyboard
actions to scroll your text. 

See...

:h scb
:h tw
:h CTRL-W

The last two can be combined to tweak the width of your columns and your
half-windows.

You could also take a peek at the ‘pr’ command:

$ pr -3 -w 300 infile.txt | less

If your display has 260+ columns and your input file 80 characters
lines, this should present you with roughly formatted 3-column output.

CJ