Fold Column Details, Other Options, and Fold Behavior

is a number, which sets the width for a column on the side of the window to indicate folds. When it is zero, there is no foldcolumn. A normal value is auto:9. The maximum is 9. An open fold is indicated with a column that has a '-' at the top and '|' characters below it. This column stops where the open fold stops. When folds nest, the nested fold is one character right of the fold it's contained in. A closed fold is indicated with a '+'. These characters can be changed with the 'fillchars' option. Where the fold column is too narrow to display all nested folds, digits are shown to indicate the nesting level. The mouse can also be used to open and close folds by clicking in the fold column: - Click on a '+' to open the closed fold at this row. - Click on any other non-blank character to close the open fold at this row. OTHER OPTIONS 'foldenable' 'fen': Open all folds while not set. 'foldexpr' 'fde': Expression used for "expr" folding. 'foldignore' 'fdi': Characters used for "indent" folding. 'foldmarker' 'fmr': Defined markers used for "marker" folding. 'foldmethod' 'fdm': Name of the current folding method. 'foldminlines' 'fml': Minimum number of screen lines for a fold to be displayed closed. 'foldnestmax' 'fdn': Maximum nesting for "indent" and "syntax" folding. 'foldopen' 'fdo': Which kinds of commands open closed folds. 'foldclose' 'fcl': When the folds not under the cursor are closed. ============================================================================== 4. Behavior of folds *fold-behavior* When moving the cursor upwards or downwards and when scrolling, the cursor will move to the first line of a sequence of folded lines. When the cursor is already on a folded line, it moves to the next unfolded line or the next closed fold. While the cursor is on folded lines, the cursor is always displayed in the first column. The ruler does show the actual cursor position, but since the line is folded, it cannot be displayed there. Many movement commands handle a sequence of folded lines like an empty line. For example, the "w" command stops once in the first column. When starting a search in a closed fold it will not find a match in the current fold. It's like a forward search always starts from the end of the closed fold, while a backwards search starts from the start of the closed fold. When in Insert mode, the cursor line is never folded. That allows you to see what you type! When using an operator, a closed fold is included as a whole. Thus "dl" deletes the whole closed fold under the cursor. For Ex commands that work on buffer lines the range is adjusted to always start at the first line of a closed fold and end at the last line of a closed fold. Thus this command: > :s/foo/bar/g when used with the cursor on a closed fold, will replace "foo" with "bar" in all lines of the fold. This does not happen for |:folddoopen| and |:folddoclosed|. When editing a buffer that has been edited before, the last used folding settings are used again. For manual folding the defined folds are restored. For all folding methods the manually opened and closed folds are restored. If this buffer has been edited in this window, the values from back then are used. Otherwise the values from the window where the buffer was edited last are used. vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl:

The text details the 'foldcolumn' option and its function, then lists other fold-related options such as 'foldenable', 'foldexpr', 'foldignore', 'foldmarker', 'foldmethod', 'foldminlines', 'foldnestmax', 'foldopen' and 'foldclose'. It further explains the behavior of folds regarding cursor movement, search, insert mode, operator usage, Ex commands, and the restoration of folding settings when editing a buffer that has been edited before.