foldable-view-mode

foldable-view-mode: gives a grouped view the shared <Tab> / <S-Tab> fold chords; each view declares which of its own actions <Tab> should run.

On this page

<Tab> folds the block under the cursor, and <S-Tab> folds every block, in the generated views that are built out of blocks — the org agenda, magit status and diffs, project search results, the references view, *problems* and *compilation*. This mode is where those two chords live, once.

Why one mode instead of a chord per view

The same reason refreshable-view-mode exists, and the same evidence. Magit had both chords; the org agenda grew its own copy; and project search, the references view, *problems* and *compilation* had neither — four views made of foldable blocks with no way to collapse one. That went unnoticed because a gap in a copied set does not announce itself: there was no single place the chord should have been, so nothing was missing from anywhere in particular.

So the chord is declared here and the body mostly is not. <S-Tab> is shared outright, because "fold everything in this buffer" means the same thing everywhere. <Tab> resolves to whichever action the view declared, so a view with a genuine specialisation keeps it: in magit, pressing <Tab> on a file line in the status buffer expands its diff on the first press, which is what = does too. Everywhere else it is the plain fold toggle.

Activation

Manual, never automatic. In an ordinary file <Tab> is the terminal's name for <C-i> — jump forward through the jump list — and that must keep working, so this mode attaches only to the generated views that opt in.

The trade is deliberate: inside one of those views, <Tab> folds rather than jumps. You navigate those views with <CR>, ]] and [[ instead, and folding a block is the thing you actually reach for.

Keybindings

  • <Tab> — fold or unfold the block at the cursor.
  • <S-Tab> — fold or unfold every block in the view.

Both are ordinary folds, so the z chords still work alongside them: zM to close everything, zR to open it, za to toggle one.

Options

None. Whether a view opens folded is the view's own business — the org agenda opens collapsed to its blocks, search results open expanded — and is controlled by foldlevel, which you can set per buffer with :setlocal foldlevel=99.

See also