How can I make one Vim viewport follow another?

Question

When working in Vim I normally split the screen into two vertically. Often both of these viewports are displaying the same file. Is there a way to associate their positions in the file?

Hopefully I make one of them always show the lines immediately following the other, so that as I scroll around in either viewport the other updates.

Answer 1

The feature is called scroll binding. It is controlled by the values of the 'scrollbind' and 'scrollopt' options.

Usage:

1. Adjust your scrollopt settings.
   Probably you at least want :set scrollopt+=hor.
2. Position each window (split) so they match up however you like.
3. :set scrollbind in each window.
4. Scroll around. Movement in any scroll-bound window will be reflected in all other scroll-bound windows.