Question

I have made a key mapping for Vim’s tab functionality as

318 map <C-h> : tabprevious<CR>$
319 map <C-l> : tabnext<CR>$
320 map <C-t> : tabnew<CR> <Esc>:NERDTree<CR>$ 

but it does not seem to work . Any idea ?

Answer 1

I’m not sure what the leading numbers and trailing $ are for.

Try these:

nnomap <C-h> :tabprevious<CR>
nnomap <C-l> :tabnext<CR>
nnomap <C-t> :tabnew<CR>:NERDTree<CR>

All characters in the mapping are treated literally (as if you typed them). Note that the noremap versions are safer because they are nonrecursive, although it makes no difference in this case. Also, nnoremap is restricted to normal mode, which makes sense for these mappings (you don’t want to be insert mode while you are switching between tabs).