Question

i want to automatize a process to php apps. So I’m using this plugin that after starting the debugging process (F5) it shows this message in the command line:

waiting for a new connection on port 9000 for 5 seconds…

So, inmediately after that throwing that message I would like to call a bash script that is in my home folder. So I create a key biding like this:

map gm <F5> :!sh ~/refresh_browser.sh<enter>

My problem: because of the message waiting ... is not possible to write commands in the command line.

So, is there any way to clear the command line to remove the waiting.. message before executing the bash script? if not, what is your advice?

EDIT: after the answer of Ingo Karkat finally I created a key binding like this:

map gm :! ~/my_script.sh &<enter><F5>  

and this script:

#!/bin/sh
xdotool windowfocus `xdotool search --name "Mozilla Firefox" | head -1`
sleep 2
xdotool key F5
xdotool windowactivate `xdotool search --name "GVIM" | head -1`
xdotool key F4 #to go to the breakpoint

Answer 1

The waiting... message and the fact that you cannot issue additional commands means that Vim is still blocked; probably, that plugin is executing an external command or is polling for something. As Vim is inherently single-threaded, there’s nothing you can do there. (Well, except for moving from Vimscript to Perl, Python, Ruby, etc., that allow parallel processing.)

The Bash script that you intend to launch, on the other hand, is able to launch additional processes in the background (with & appended), so I would suggest you reverse your intended calling sequence and invoke the script before the plugin.