What is the difference between zt and z-Enter when scrolling the current line to the top of the screen?

Explanation

Both zt and z<CR> scroll the view so that the current line lands at the top of the screen, but they differ in one small but important way: z<CR> also moves the cursor to the first non-blank character of the line, while zt leaves the cursor exactly where it is.

The same distinction applies to the other scroll-to-position pairs:

How it works

• zt — redraw so current line is at top, cursor column unchanged
• z<CR> — redraw so current line is at top, cursor moves to first non-blank
• zz — redraw so current line is at center, cursor column unchanged
• z. — redraw so current line is at center, cursor moves to first non-blank
• zb — redraw so current line is at bottom, cursor column unchanged
• z- — redraw so current line is at bottom, cursor moves to first non-blank

Example

With the cursor mid-line on some indented code:

    function foo() {   ← cursor is on the '{'

• zt scrolls foo to top, cursor stays on {
• z<CR> scrolls foo to top, cursor jumps to f in function

Tips

• The z. variant (center + first non-blank) is useful when you want to both reposition the view and snap the cursor to the beginning of the line in one keystroke.
• All six commands accept a count prefix to scroll a different line to that position: 10zt scrolls line 10 to the top.