Access to the terminal while you are on Vim

Is there a way to access the terminal while using Vim?

I do not like to open another terminal or save and exit the current terminal.


Solution 1:

You can send vim the SIGTSTP signal. You do this by pressing ctrl+z. Vim will get suspended in the background, and you can use the terminal. Type fg in the terminal to resume with vim.

Bonus tip: This works on nearly all terminal applications. Use bg to enable the application to continue running in the background.

Solution 2:

In vim, just type:

:!sh

:! launches an external process -- in this case sh, another shell. Control will return to vim once you exit the shell. If you want to use the shell concurrently with vim, add & to the end of the sh command:

:!sh&