til/vim/swap-the-position-of-two-split-windows.md

Swap The Position Of Two Split Windows

A Vim workflow that I often end up in is one where I have two windows split either vertically or horizontally. I'm usually editing in one side of the split and referencing something from the other side of the split.

I typically like to have the split them I'm editing in on the top or to the left. If the split that I want to edit from ends up in the bottom or to the right, I can swap its position with the other window using one of Vim's window commands. These are typically prefixed with Ctrl-w.

Swapping the position of two windows is the same as rotating them, either to the left or to the right. In that case, I can use either of these commands:

Ctrl-w Ctrl-r # rotates windows downwards/rightwards
Ctrl-w r      # rotates windows upwards/leftwards

See Ctrl-W_Ctrl-R for more details.