Navigating between windows

Only one window can be active at once in Vim — meaning you can only have your cursor “working” in one window. To get the full power out of the windowing system, we need to get fast at zipping around between windows.

Moving among windows is done with the same keys as moving the cursor — hjkl — but you have to press <C-w> first to tell Vim “I’m talking about moving between windows”.

That means:

• <C-w>h moves the active window to the left.
• <C-w>j moves the active window down.
• <C-w>k moves the active window up.
• <C-w>l moves the active window to the right.

The arrow keys also work, if you’re not a fan of hjkl.

Try it in the editor. Just like before, open up a bunch of windows with either :split/:vsplit/<C-w>s/<C-w>v, then try moving the cursor between windows with the movement commands above.