If I understand what you're asking, I think you'll find the ZoomWin plugin helpful (GitHub). If you've got a bunch of split windows, and you want to temporarily make the current window the only visible one, you can hit <C-w>o. When you want to revert to the previous split state, hit <C-w>o again.
[Edit] Note on key mappings:
The default key mapping for this plugin is <C-w>o, but that conflicts with a default Vim key mapping. By default, that does :only, which makes the current window the only window. If you'd like to retain that functionality, you can remap ZoomWin to another key. I remap it to <C-w>w, because I like to use the :only option as well. Here's my mapping:
nnoremap <silent> <C-w>w :ZoomWin<CR>
Note that this also overrides a default Vim mapping, related to moving to other visible windows (:help CTRL-W_w), but I never used that one anyway.
An option could be to pursue the editing in a new tab. The following command opens the active buffer into a new tab allowing you to see the buffer in the hole vim window.
:tab split
And close the tab when you're done:
:tabc
Edit:
You can always use the following command to use tt as a shortcut (or better add it to your .vimrc):
I've tried ZoomWin and a few others. The problem is, they all destroy and try to re-create the windows. This is especially problematic with custom plugins like NERDTree, Tagbar and a few others. Icons and fonts are not drawn properly, sizes are messed up etc..
zoomwintab.vim is a simple zoom window plugin that uses vim's tabs feature to zoom into a window inspired by ZoomWin plugin but in a non-destructive manner.
It creates the effect. You use the mapped key (Leader and + in my case) to toggle between maximized / previous layout. If you change to another split in the same tab, maximization turns off.
Manoj somewhat answered with a lot more useful info, but as a first step this is what works for me:
:hide: Hide the current buffer - with a two-buffer split, this makes the other buffer full screen. Unlike :only, this command does not close unmodified buffers so you can unhide them.
:unhide: Re-create splits for each open buffer
The unhide command does not restore the previous layout, so you will have to manually rearrange your windows if needed ex. using one of these for simple vertical/horizontal splits (this is CTRL-W followed by the uppercase navigation letter - release CTRL-W before entering the letter):
CTRL-WSHIFT-H: Move window to the far left CTRL-WSHIFT-J: Move window to the very bottom CTRL-WSHIFT-K: Move window to the very top CTRL-WSHIFT-L: Move window to the far right
These are the same keys used for navigation, without SHIFT (lowercase navigation letters):
CTRL-WH: Move focus to the left window CTRL-WJ: Move focus to the bottom window CTRL-WK: Move focus to the top window CTRL-WL: Move focus to the right window
The H, J, K and K keys alone move the cursor - arrow keys on the keyboard may work as well for navigation.