How can I swap positions of two open files (in splits) in vim?

Starting with this:

____________________
| one       | two  |
|           |      |
|           |______|
|           | three|
|           |      |
|___________|______|

Make ‘three’ the active window, then issue the command ctrl+w J. This moves the current window to fill the bottom of the screen, leaving you with:

____________________
| one       | two  |
|           |      |
|___________|______|
| three            |
|                  |
|__________________|

Now make either ‘one’ or ‘two’ the active window, then issue the command ctrl+w r. This ‘rotates’ the windows in the current row, leaving you with:

____________________
| two       | one  |
|           |      |
|___________|______|
| three            |
|                  |
|__________________|

Now make ‘two’ the active window, and issue the command ctrl+w H. This moves the current window to fill the left of the screen, leaving you with:

____________________
| two       | one  |
|           |      |
|           |______|
|           | three|
|           |      |
|___________|______|

As you can see, the manouevre is a bit of a shuffle. With 3 windows, it’s a bit like one of those ’tile game’ puzzles. I don’t recommand trying this if you have 4 or more windows – you’d be better off closing them then opening them again in the desired positions.

I made a screencast demonstrating how to work with split windows in Vim.