make nerdtree never open a third window

Question

When using NERDTree, I often have the situation where I close all existing buffers (except the NERDTree buffer), and then start opening fils from NERDTree again.

When doing this, NERDTree opens the files in a new split window, i.e. I have NERDTree at the left side, and on the right side two windows on top of each other, an emtpy buffer and the file I wanted to open.

What I want to happen is that NERDTree opens the file in the right window without splitting it.

Is there a way to tell NERDTree to never open a new window, if there is already one it could use? I tried using the "o" command, but that works exactly like the Enter command.

Answer 1

I finally got around to look at the nerdtree code, and I found the fix for my problem: I had to change the plugin.

I created a pull request for my changes on github: https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree/pull/102

Update: Actually, the problem was a script I was using that set buftype=nofile for an empty buffer (it should set buftype=). After changing that, my problem went away.

Answer 2

Have you checked all the mappings from the documentation

o.......Open files, directories and bookmarks....................|NERDTree-o|

go......Open selected file, but leave cursor in the NERDTree.....|NERDTree-go|

t.......Open selected node/bookmark in a new tab.................|NERDTree-t|

T.......Same as 't' but keep the focus on the current tab........|NERDTree-T|

i.......Open selected file in a split window.....................|NERDTree-i|

gi......Same as i, but leave the cursor on the NERDTree..........|NERDTree-gi|

s.......Open selected file in a new vsplit.......................|NERDTree-s|

gs......Same as s, but leave the cursor on the NERDTree..........|NERDTree-gs|

O.......Recursively open the selected directory..................|NERDTree-O|

x.......Close the current nodes parent...........................|NERDTree-x|

X.......Recursively close all children of the current node.......|NERDTree-X|

e.......Edit the current dif.....................................|NERDTree-e|