vi set default found line to center of screen?

Question

Using vi on a Solaris 10 system. When I search for a string with the common syntax

/foo<CR>

the placement of the found line is semingly random within the 60 lines on my display. Sometimes it is near the top, sometimes middle, often the last line.

I would like it to be at a consistent location, (somewhere above the bottom). The following will always place it in the middle

/foo/z.<CR>

How can I make that the default behavior so that if I simply type

/foo<CR>

it will display the found line in the middle every time?

Answer 1

Adding in your ~/.vimrc something like:

let g:in_search = 0
function! StartSearch()
  let g:in_search = 1
endfunction

function! EndSearch()
  if g:in_search
    normal! zz
  endif
  let g:in_search = 0
endfunction

nnoremap / <ESC>:call StartSearch()<CR>/
cnoremap <CR> <CR>:call EndSearch()<CR>
nnoremap n nzz
nnoremap N Nzz

could do the trick.

But maybe you just need:

set incsearch
set hlsearch

?!