All folds open when opening a file

{{TipImported
|id=797
|previous=796
|next=798
|created=October 1, 2004
|complexity=basic
|author=Pim Snel
|version=6.0
|rating=6/7
|category1=Folding
|category2=
}}
When you set <code>foldmethod</code> to something like <code>indent</code> or <code>syntax</code>, which defines folds as soon as you open the file, all folds are closed by default. If you set the <code>foldlevel</code> to a high setting, files are always loaded with opened folds. For example, you could put the settings below in your <code>vimrc</code>:

<pre>
set foldmethod=indent
set foldlevel=20
</pre>

This is not ideal, however, as the <code>foldlevel</code> option is local to the window, and additionally gets modified every time you use a command that adjusts the fold level, like <code>zm</code>, <code>zr</code>, and their friends.

A better method is to set the <code>foldlevel</code> whenever you load a buffer into a window. You could use autocommands for this, but there is a built-in option that does this for you automatically:

<pre>
set foldlevelstart=20
</pre>

This is ''much'' closer to an optimal solution, but one problem remains: even with the <code>foldlevelstart</code> option, it will take several iterations of the <code>zm</code> command to hide any of a file if you have set the <code>foldlevel</code> high enough. To fix this, you need to use autocmds. For example, to open all folds for a list of file types, but only up to the maximum fold level so that <code>zm</code> and related commands work right away, you could do the following:

<pre>
" Note, perl automatically sets foldmethod in the syntax file
autocmd Syntax c,cpp,vim,xml,html,xhtml setlocal foldmethod=syntax
autocmd Syntax c,cpp,vim,xml,html,xhtml,perl normal zR
</pre>

Tweak the event and filetypes matched to your liking.

You could use a combination of this method and the <code>foldlevelstart</code> option to get just enough fold levels open on certain filetypes, but default to having them all open even if the file is not one of your chosen types.

==See also==
* [[Folding]] presents an overview of how to use folding

==References==
*{{help|'foldlevel'}}
*{{help|'foldlevelstart'}}

==Comments==