Re: vim diff - only display differences in lines

There isn't an easy way to sort the diff lines like so. Keep in mind that Vim does not know or care that the user lines are "sorted" nor is it immediately obvious to a diff algorithm how to do what you are showing because it's very dependent on the user intent. All Vim sees from the diff algorithm is "remove user2/user4 on the left, add user1/user3 on the right". Generally diff algorithms do not care about whether the contents are sorted or not.

Even if a feature is added to forcefully break the lines apart it would look like this rather than what you want (keep in mind that this feature does not exist and I simulated this by manually setting diff anchors):

Meanwhile if the inline highlight is distracting to you you can just turn off inline diff (set diffopt+=inline:none), which at least prevents Vim from doing the highlighting on the digits:

As I mentioned above, you can force Vim to show the diff however you want with diff anchors. It's not automatic though, as diff anchors are more designed to give you control over which lines to align where, when the algorithm does not do what you want. Say if you really want it to show up the way you want, with some manual fiddling to help visualize it, you can do it and get it to show up like this (see :help diff-anchors to see how to do this):

Diff anchor does have a bit of a learning curve especially if you need such granular controls, and it isn't a good fit if you want everything to be done automatically for you. FWIW the command I got to show the above is:

set diffopt+=anchor

setlocal diffanchors=1,2,2

setlocal diffanchors=2,2,3

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 5:37 AM Igor <igor2x@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

1. I have two list of users like in file1:

user1

user3

and in file2:

user2

user4

2. I open first file:

:e file1

2. Open second file

:vsp file2

3. Do the diff between files

:windo diffthis

Diff is displayed as differences between files:


But I would like diff to be displayed as "line is missing" principle like this:

Both list of users are sorted, so it should be visible which user is missing on which user list.

How to force vim to display diff in "line missing" principle?

Thanks

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vim diff - only display differences in lines

Hi,

1. I have two list of users like in file1:

user1

user3

and in file2:

user2

user4

2. I open first file:

:e file1

2. Open second file

:vsp file2

3. Do the diff between files

:windo diffthis

Diff is displayed as differences between files:


But I would like diff to be displayed as "line is missing" principle like this:

Both list of users are sorted, so it should be visible which user is missing on which user list.

How to force vim to display diff in "line missing" principle?

Thanks

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Re: Scrolling behavior when using gj and gk is jumpy

> I understand that, but my main point is that positioning the cursor serves as a way to scroll in basically every other text editor on earth and it would be nice if it did here, too.

Moving the cursor and scrolling are two different things, with the former _sometimes_ causing the latter.

Doing the former in order to obtain the latter is, well… not a very efficient use of your tools.

Especially when a) there is a whole set of commands and widgets for doing the latter (<C-e>/<C-y>/etc., scrollbars, mousewheel, trackpad…) and b) it doesn't work particularly well to begin with.

It is the same side effect at play in every text editor and every multi-line text input widget on every platform, Vim included: you are moving the cursor to a line that is outside the viewport so the viewport is moved to include that line.

Where Vim's behavior might be different from other editors in that case is how it handles wrapped lines.

And how it does it makes perfect sense given the actual purpose of jkgjgk: the full _line_ is displayed so that you can _edit_ it comfortably.

> Plus, even if I scroll with ctl-e etc, the second I move my cursor into the "paragraph," it'll do that jerky jump. 

Not with :set smoothscroll.

If you want to _scroll_, use scrolling commands (in Vim and elsewhere).

They exist for that specific purpose and they will always be better than unrelated commands that may or may not cause scrolling.

If you want pixel-perfect scrolling, use a modern non-terminal based editor.

On Monday, October 13, 2025 at 3:23:32 PM UTC+2 Marc Adler wrote:

I understand that, but my main point is that positioning the cursor serves as a way to scroll in basically every other text editor on earth and it would be nice if it did here, too.

Plus, even if I scroll with ctl-e etc, the second I move my cursor into the "paragraph," it'll do that jerky jump. 

On Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 1:47:22 AM UTC-5 Romain Lafourcade wrote:

The purpose of j, k, gj, and gk is to _position the cursor_ for the next editing command.

They might also move the buffer up or down relative to the viewport, but that is only a _side effect_ of having the cursor at the top or bottom of the window.

:help 'smoothscroll' works perfectly, but _for actual "scrolling" commands_, which j, k, gj, and gk are not. 

Use Ctrl-E, Ctrl-Y, etc. to _scroll_.

See :help scrolling.

On Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 11:25:03 AM UTC+2 Yee Cheng Chin wrote:

I don't think the issue is asymmetric as you claimed? gj/gk exhibits
the same jumping behavior both up and down (which is also shown in
your video). When you go to a new line, Vim tries to fit the entire
wrapped line with the cursor in the whole screen which is why it feels
jumpy. I don't think there is a builtin way to fix this. You could
write a script to re-scroll the text using Ctrl-E/Ctrl-Y when you do
gj/gk to get around this issue though. You could of course file an
issue to Vim to see if there will be an appetite to add this as an
option.

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 2:38 PM Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I use Vim to write text, ie prose with paragraphs.
>
>
> Vim interprets a paragraph as a single line, but it's good at displaying line breaks anyway.
>
>
> The problem is that it skips up and down by paragraph when you scroll up and down with gj and gk, making the text jerky and difficult to read.
>
>
> Smoothscroll fixes this, but only when you're scrolling down.
>
>
> Is there a way to make it work when scrolling up?
>
>
> Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The first is Vim (Neovim) and the second is VSCode. The VSCode behavior is what you see in every other text editor.
>
>
> Vim:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/u83V2TA
>
>
> VSCode:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/8dhcXo1
>
>
> Is there a way to fix this? Like I said, this behavior is unique to Vim.
>
> --
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Re: Scrolling behavior when using gj and gk is jumpy

I understand that, but my main point is that positioning the cursor serves as a way to scroll in basically every other text editor on earth and it would be nice if it did here, too.

Plus, even if I scroll with ctl-e etc, the second I move my cursor into the "paragraph," it'll do that jerky jump. 

On Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 1:47:22 AM UTC-5 Romain Lafourcade wrote:

The purpose of j, k, gj, and gk is to _position the cursor_ for the next editing command.

They might also move the buffer up or down relative to the viewport, but that is only a _side effect_ of having the cursor at the top or bottom of the window.

:help 'smoothscroll' works perfectly, but _for actual "scrolling" commands_, which j, k, gj, and gk are not. 

Use Ctrl-E, Ctrl-Y, etc. to _scroll_.

See :help scrolling.

On Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 11:25:03 AM UTC+2 Yee Cheng Chin wrote:

I don't think the issue is asymmetric as you claimed? gj/gk exhibits
the same jumping behavior both up and down (which is also shown in
your video). When you go to a new line, Vim tries to fit the entire
wrapped line with the cursor in the whole screen which is why it feels
jumpy. I don't think there is a builtin way to fix this. You could
write a script to re-scroll the text using Ctrl-E/Ctrl-Y when you do
gj/gk to get around this issue though. You could of course file an
issue to Vim to see if there will be an appetite to add this as an
option.

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 2:38 PM Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I use Vim to write text, ie prose with paragraphs.
>
>
> Vim interprets a paragraph as a single line, but it's good at displaying line breaks anyway.
>
>
> The problem is that it skips up and down by paragraph when you scroll up and down with gj and gk, making the text jerky and difficult to read.
>
>
> Smoothscroll fixes this, but only when you're scrolling down.
>
>
> Is there a way to make it work when scrolling up?
>
>
> Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The first is Vim (Neovim) and the second is VSCode. The VSCode behavior is what you see in every other text editor.
>
>
> Vim:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/u83V2TA
>
>
> VSCode:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/8dhcXo1
>
>
> Is there a way to fix this? Like I said, this behavior is unique to Vim.
>
> --
> --
> You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
> Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
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>
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Re: Scrolling behavior when using gj and gk is jumpy

"You could of course file an issue to Vim to see if there will be an appetite to add this as an option."

I just found the vim dev group. I'll post there. It's a little weird that Vim is the only text editor that has this behavior.

On Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 4:25:03 AM UTC-5 Yee Cheng Chin wrote:

I don't think the issue is asymmetric as you claimed? gj/gk exhibits
the same jumping behavior both up and down (which is also shown in
your video). When you go to a new line, Vim tries to fit the entire
wrapped line with the cursor in the whole screen which is why it feels
jumpy. I don't think there is a builtin way to fix this. You could
write a script to re-scroll the text using Ctrl-E/Ctrl-Y when you do
gj/gk to get around this issue though. You could of course file an
issue to Vim to see if there will be an appetite to add this as an
option.

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 2:38 PM Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I use Vim to write text, ie prose with paragraphs.
>
>
> Vim interprets a paragraph as a single line, but it's good at displaying line breaks anyway.
>
>
> The problem is that it skips up and down by paragraph when you scroll up and down with gj and gk, making the text jerky and difficult to read.
>
>
> Smoothscroll fixes this, but only when you're scrolling down.
>
>
> Is there a way to make it work when scrolling up?
>
>
> Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The first is Vim (Neovim) and the second is VSCode. The VSCode behavior is what you see in every other text editor.
>
>
> Vim:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/u83V2TA
>
>
> VSCode:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/8dhcXo1
>
>
> Is there a way to fix this? Like I said, this behavior is unique to Vim.
>
> --
> --
> You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
> Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
> For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
>
> ---
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Re: Scrolling behavior when using gj and gk is jumpy

The purpose of j, k, gj, and gk is to _position the cursor_ for the next editing command.

They might also move the buffer up or down relative to the viewport, but that is only a _side effect_ of having the cursor at the top or bottom of the window.

:help 'smoothscroll' works perfectly, but _for actual "scrolling" commands_, which j, k, gj, and gk are not. 

Use Ctrl-E, Ctrl-Y, etc. to _scroll_.

See :help scrolling.

On Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 11:25:03 AM UTC+2 Yee Cheng Chin wrote:

I don't think the issue is asymmetric as you claimed? gj/gk exhibits
the same jumping behavior both up and down (which is also shown in
your video). When you go to a new line, Vim tries to fit the entire
wrapped line with the cursor in the whole screen which is why it feels
jumpy. I don't think there is a builtin way to fix this. You could
write a script to re-scroll the text using Ctrl-E/Ctrl-Y when you do
gj/gk to get around this issue though. You could of course file an
issue to Vim to see if there will be an appetite to add this as an
option.

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 2:38 PM Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I use Vim to write text, ie prose with paragraphs.
>
>
> Vim interprets a paragraph as a single line, but it's good at displaying line breaks anyway.
>
>
> The problem is that it skips up and down by paragraph when you scroll up and down with gj and gk, making the text jerky and difficult to read.
>
>
> Smoothscroll fixes this, but only when you're scrolling down.
>
>
> Is there a way to make it work when scrolling up?
>
>
> Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The first is Vim (Neovim) and the second is VSCode. The VSCode behavior is what you see in every other text editor.
>
>
> Vim:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/u83V2TA
>
>
> VSCode:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/8dhcXo1
>
>
> Is there a way to fix this? Like I said, this behavior is unique to Vim.
>
> --
> --
> You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
> Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
> For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
>
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Re: Scrolling behavior when using gj and gk is jumpy

I don't think the issue is asymmetric as you claimed? gj/gk exhibits
the same jumping behavior both up and down (which is also shown in
your video). When you go to a new line, Vim tries to fit the entire
wrapped line with the cursor in the whole screen which is why it feels
jumpy. I don't think there is a builtin way to fix this. You could
write a script to re-scroll the text using Ctrl-E/Ctrl-Y when you do
gj/gk to get around this issue though. You could of course file an
issue to Vim to see if there will be an appetite to add this as an
option.

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 2:38 PM Marc Adler <marc.adler@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I use Vim to write text, ie prose with paragraphs.
>
>
> Vim interprets a paragraph as a single line, but it's good at displaying line breaks anyway.
>
>
> The problem is that it skips up and down by paragraph when you scroll up and down with gj and gk, making the text jerky and difficult to read.
>
>
> Smoothscroll fixes this, but only when you're scrolling down.
>
>
> Is there a way to make it work when scrolling up?
>
>
> Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The first is Vim (Neovim) and the second is VSCode. The VSCode behavior is what you see in every other text editor.
>
>
> Vim:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/u83V2TA
>
>
> VSCode:
>
> https://imgur.com/a/8dhcXo1
>
>
> Is there a way to fix this? Like I said, this behavior is unique to Vim.
>
> --
> --
> You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
> Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
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>
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