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VerticalHelp : Launch help in vertical window for wide-screen displays

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created by
Mel Davis
 
script type
utility
 
description
This is a very simple script to display help in an appropriately sized vertical window.

With a wide-screen monitor, vim's help is best displayed in a vertical window; but the command 'vertical help' opens a help window taking up half of the display. In my case, it opens a 250 column window to display an 80 column file.  The width of the vertical window is the buffer's textwidth, typically specified in the file's modeline.  

USAGE:
:H  <topic>    " Opens a help window vertically on the right

If a help topic was opened horizontally using :h, then the command :H will move and resize the window.
If a help window already exists that is vertical and sized appropriately, then :H will toggle between the help window and the previous window without having to <C-W>p.

:H allows for command-line completion, just as :h does.

OPTIONS:
g:vertical_help_left -- Define this to display the window on the left instead of the right.

NOTES:
I especially like to use this to display custom cheatsheets, which I format as vim help files.  I put the cheatsheets under vimfiles/bundle/cheatsheets/doc.  Then I call, for example,
:H git-cheatsheet, to pull up my notes. By basing the window width on textwidth, the cheatsheets are not limited to 80 columns.
 
install details
Put the .vim file to ~/.vim/plugin
 

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package script version date Vim version user release notes
VerticalHelp.vim 1.02 2013-10-20 7.0 Mel Davis Sets help window to textwidth, instead of defaulting to 80 columns.
VerticalHelp.vim 1.01 2013-09-25 7.0 Mel Davis Corrected check for windows size and corrected a normal command.
ip used for rating: 18.97.9.175

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