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What is this view in vim called, and what is it for?

Somehow when I type colon to enter a command in vim I accidentally bring up a view that looks like this. But I can't get it to happen consistently, and I don't know what it is.

Edit: It seems to happen if I type "q:", instead of ":q".

unknown vim view screen-shot

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    I believe it is called command line history window. Check this page: vim.wikia.com/wiki/Using_command-line_history Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 19:19
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    @MelBurslan. That answered my question. Thanks. Perhaps your comment should be an answer? Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 19:28
  • @MelBurslan That page has a really annoying ad redirect on iPhone... Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 19:52
  • @Martijn: sorry, I am not an Apple Tax payer. Page came from my laptop. I'm pretty sure wikia.com is trying to make some money. Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 20:10
  • @procrastinate_later Just a link as an answer doesn't justify to be an answer on its own. As long as you found your answer, that's all it matters. Not where it came from. Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 20:11

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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It's the command-line window (keyboard shortcut q:, quit with ctrl+c,ctrl+c)

It shows a history of your previous commands, which you can navigate to and edit with normal (command) mode. Once you've finished you can hit enter to run the edited or reselected command.

A similar history window is available for searches (keyboard shortcut q/, quit with ctrl+c,ctrl+c).

Reference: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Using_command-line_history

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    You can quit it as you would quit any other window: :q, Ctrl-C isn't needed. Commented Feb 6, 2016 at 12:08

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