Question

I use :match to highlight problems with my code that don’t meet style guidelines. The following works great for the first window I open in Vim:

~/.vimrc:

hi ExtraWhitespace ctermbg=red guibg=red
hi NoFunctionSpace ctermbg=red guibg=red
match ExtraWhitespace /\s\+$\| \+\ze\t/
2match NoFunctionSpace /\S(/

However, when I go to :tabedit a file, or if I open Vim with the -p option and multiple files, only the first window highlights matches. I want all of my open tabs to show matches.

Answer 1

The :match commands only apply to the current window. To automatically apply them to each new window, hook them into the WinEnter event:

autocmd WinEnter * match ExtraWhitespace /\s\+$\| \+\ze\t/
autocmd WinEnter * 2match NoFunctionSpace /\S(/

You still need the original :match commands, too, because the WinEnter event isn’t fired for the initial window.