Is there a way in vim to know I am in the left most split?

Question

I want to detect whether or not I am in the right most (or left, top, bottommost) split. In other words, when ctrl-w h would do nothing. Is there a way to do that?

Answer 1

There's only winnr(), which is a sequential numbering; i.e. you can only check for topleft- and bottomright-most window, but not the exact window relations. If you need this information in a mapping / script, you'd have to do exactly as you've described:

function! IsLeftMostWindow()
    let curNr = winnr()
    wincmd h
    if winnr() == curNr
        return 1
    endif
    wincmd p " Move back.
    return 0
endfunction

Answer 2

If you are using split screens in vim, you will see in the bottom of all of the split screens a bar with the filename (and information about the position of the cursor). In the active window, the text in this bar bold-face. So by checking the bold-face text, you can immediately see which of the splits you activated.