Scroll vertically while keeping horizontal position

Question

I'm viewing a file containing visually aligned columns in truncate line mode, and would like to scroll vertically without changing my horizontal scroll position. But scroll-down always moves the cursor to the first column. Is there a simple way to prevent this, and keep the current horizontal point position?

Answer 1

I believe you're looking for something like:

(setq scroll-preserve-screen-position 'always)

Answer 2

Option goal-column might help in this regard. C-h v goal-column says:

goal-column is a variable defined in simple.el.

Its value is nil

Automatically becomes buffer-local when set.

Documentation:

Semipermanent goal column for vertical motion, as set by C-x C-n, or nil.

A non-nil setting overrides the variable line-move-visual, which see.

You can customize this variable.