To switch from vertical split to horizontal split fast in Vim

How can you switch your current windows from horizontal split to vertical split and vice versa in Vim?

I did that a moment ago by accident but I cannot find the key again.

Solution 1:

Vim mailing list says (re-formatted for better readability):

To change two vertically split windows to horizonally split

Ctrl-w t Ctrl-w K

Horizontally to vertically:

Ctrl-w t Ctrl-w H

Explanations:

Ctrl-w t makes the first (topleft) window current

Ctrl-w K moves the current window to full-width at the very top

Ctrl-w H moves the current window to full-height at far left

Note that the t is lowercase, and the K and H are uppercase.

Also, with only two windows, it seems like you can drop the Ctrl-w t part because if you're already in one of only two windows, what's the point of making it current?

Solution 2:

Ctrl-w followed by H, J, K or L (capital) will move the current window to the far left, bottom, top or right respectively like normal cursor navigation.

The lower case equivalents move focus instead of moving the window.

Solution 3:

When you have two or more windows open horizontally or vertically and want to switch them all to the other orientation, you can use the following:

(switch to horizontal)

:windo wincmd K

(switch to vertical)

:windo wincmd H

It's effectively going to each window individually and using ^WK or ^WH.

Solution 4:

The following ex commands will (re-)split any number of windows:

• To split vertically (e.g. make vertical dividers between windows), type :vertical ball
• To split horizontally, type :ball

If there are hidden buffers, issuing these commands will also make the hidden buffers visible.