Sublime Text 2 -> Vim, How do I open html file in Chrome?

Question

Just getting started with Vim and am writing a basic HTML file. In SublimeText you could just right click and open in browser, but i'm having trouble finding how to do the same with Vim. I have Ubuntu and I want to preview the code in Chrome.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use :! to execute external commands within vim (see :help :! ). The % sign in an :ex command expands to the current file name (see :help :_% ). That being said, you can use the following to first save the file and then open it in the browser of your choice

:w|!google-chrome %

If you'd rather use firefox or chromium, use firefox or chromium , respectively, in place of google-chrome . If you're on mac or linux you could also use the open or xdg-open commands, respectively, to open the file in its default application. Don't want to type that out every time? Make your own command or mapping in your .vimrc.

command! ViewInBrowser :w|!google-chrome %
nnoremap <leader>b :ViewInBrowser<cr>