How do I redraw the screen with the cursor line at center or bottom and move to the first non-blank character?

Explanation

Vim has scroll-positioning commands that come in two flavors: those that leave the cursor in the current column (zz, zt, zb) and those that also move the cursor to the first non-blank character of the line (z., z<CR>, z-). This subtle distinction matters when your cursor is sitting in the middle of indented code.

How it works

Example

Given this Python code with the cursor somewhere inside a method:

    def process(self):
        result = self._calculate()
       ^ cursor here (column 7)

Pressing z. redraws with the line centered and snaps the cursor to column 4 (the first non-blank r in result):

        result = self._calculate()
    ^ cursor jumps to first non-blank

Tips

• Use z. instead of zz when you want to also normalize your cursor position to the start of the line's content
• z<CR> is the top-of-screen equivalent — useful for quickly scrolling a function header into view and landing on the code
• These commands are especially handy in heavily indented code where you want to see what you're working on without hunting for the logical start of the line