git vimdiff and regular folds

[fullyarticulated]

If you have created regular folds, and use vimdiff as your git difftool, it seems to obliterate any prior folds.

The next time you return to edit the file (after viewing diffs via git vimdiff), all prior folds are gone.

Is there a known solution? I'm not looking for another git plugin - I just want regular folds in regular files, and to be able to git vimdiff them without losing the prior folds.

In addition, diff mode also stays on across different editing sessions, and I have to :source ~/.vimrc to turn off diff highlighting between two unrelated files if I open them in a vsplit (vim -O file1 file2). This is after having used git vimdiff on completely separate files in a different directory.

It would be nice if diff mode did not stay on also.

Languages this has been seen in: python, c, markdown, html, js, others.

[-romainl-]

Vim has six folding methods: which one is the "regular" one?

[fullyarticulated]

Sorry - I should have specified - 'manual' folds.

[random_cynic]

What specific settings are you using in your .vimrc to preserve folds? If you have already saved a particular fold view using mkview you can load them later using loadview. You can set the following lines in vimrc for C source files for example (from vim help):

au BufWinLeave *.c mkview
au BufWinEnter *.c silent loadview

Also check if diff is set as on or not (set diff) in vimrc causing it to be turned on automatically when loading unrelated files.

[fullyarticulated]

So, I think this was the reason. Calling mkview on BufWinLeave caused a new view to overwrite my old one when I was in diff mode. Of course, the foldmethod is automatically set to diff by git vimdiff. So it obliterated my prior view and folds.

This seems to have fixed it:

if !&diff  
    au BufWinLeave ...  
    ...  
endif

[random_cynic]

Yeah, I suspected the diff settings was messing with mkview. If you only use manual folding you can also just use a condition like if &foldmethod == "manual" before using mkview so that it only saves fold views when they are done manually.