How do I scroll the view left and right one column at a time when line wrapping is off?

Explanation

When wrap is disabled, long lines extend off-screen. The zh and zl commands scroll the view horizontally one column at a time — zh shifts the view left (revealing content to the left) and zl shifts it right. Unlike zH/zL which jump half a screen width, these give you fine-grained control.

How it works

• zh — scroll view left by one column (or {count} columns with a count prefix)
• zl — scroll view right by one column (or {count} columns with a count prefix)
• zH — scroll left by half a screen width
• zL — scroll right by half a screen width
• zs — scroll so the cursor column is at the leftmost visible column
• ze — scroll so the cursor column is at the rightmost visible column

Example

With :set nowrap and a 200-character line, the cursor is mid-line but the beginning is off-screen:

...nction processData(input []byte) (Result, error) {

Press 5zh to scroll 5 columns left, revealing more context:

func processData(input []byte) (Result, error) {

Tips

• Add :set sidescrolloff=5 to keep at least 5 columns of context visible when the cursor moves horizontally — this pairs well with zh/zl
• :set sidescroll=1 makes horizontal scrolling smoother (scroll one column at a time instead of jumping)
• Both zh/zl and zH/zL are no-ops when wrap is on