How to quickly move to a specific buffer?

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

I typically use :bn and :bp to move between buffers, but I have five
buffers open on my current project, which requires a heck of a lot of
keystrokes to move to a specific buffer. So I'd like a command to bring
up a list of buffers so I can chose a specific one.

I've looked up :h buffers and can't find anything. Is there a way I
could do this?

Theoretically I could use the gvim menu system to do this, but it
involves taking my hands off home position to use the arrow keys, and
also, Alt+b is a difficult hotkey, so I'd much rather have some sort of
Vim command to do it.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm

[Tim Chase]

On 2022-12-13 20:09, Steve Litt wrote:
> I typically use :bn and :bp to move between buffers, but I have five
> buffers open on my current project, which requires a heck of a lot of
> keystrokes to move to a specific buffer. So I'd like a command to bring
> up a list of buffers so I can chose a specific one.

I usually use

:ls

though there's also similarly

:files
:buffers

with details at

:help :files

to list the buffers I currently have open, and then use "#" followed
by the buffer-number to edit that particular buffer-number or split
it in a new window:

:e #38
:sp #38

as detailed at

:help :_#n

If I have two that I'm flipping back and forth between, I'll use
control+^ (:help CTRL+^) to toggle between the current file and the
alternate file.

:help alternate-file

Hopefully that gives you some reasonable built-in solutions. I'm
sure there are all sorts of file-navigation plugins, but the stock
functionality works fine for me.

-tim

[Lang Hurst]

I copied this off the vim website, I think. In my .vimrc

nnoremap <F5> :buffers<CR>:buffer<Space>

Hit F5, just enter the number of the listed buffers.

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[John Passaro]

good stuff. also, `:b` completion shows your open buffers. and ^6 is not only good for going between two, not if you have three and can remember their buffer numbers via :ls, <n>^6 takes you to buffer number n.

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[Arun]

Usually, I :split open (maximized) my active files and switch back and forth using some helpful mappings (Alt-j and Alt-k). When the number of splits are more, I open a tab and do similar stuff there. I usually do not like the ":split" opening window unmaximized, so these mappings help in achieving that:

"--8<--

set nocp
set winminheight=0
set laststatus=2

au WinEnter * wincmd _

"Map Alt-j to edit split window one below. "Alt" works well in GUI, use something else inside terminals
nnoremap <m-j> <c-w>j
"Map Alt-k to edit split window one above
nnoremap <m-k> <c-w>k

"--8<--

Regards,

-Arun

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[Tim Chase]

On 2022-12-13 20:29, John Passaro wrote:
> and ^6 is not only good for going between two, not if you have
> three and can remember their buffer numbers via :ls, <n>^6 takes
> you to buffer number n.

You've pointed out the critical failure here...my inability to
remember more than one (alternate) buffer-number. ;-)

-tim

[Yegappan Lakshmanan]

Starting with Vim9, fuzzy completion of buffer names is supported.

- Yegappan

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[Steve Litt]

Arun said on Tue, 13 Dec 2022 18:22:41 -0800

>Usually, I :split open (maximized) my active files

For me, :split only makes 2 windows, not a window for every buffer.

> and switch back and
>forth using some helpful mappings (Alt-j and Alt-k). When the number of
>splits are more, I open a tab

I looked up :h tab and found stuff seemingly unrelated. How does one
open a tab?

[Steve Litt]

Yegappan Lakshmanan said on Wed, 14 Dec 2022 08:26:03 +0530

>Starting with Vim9, fuzzy completion of buffer names is supported.
>
>- Yegappan

I did :h fuzzy but it said nothing about fuzzy completion. How do I
achieve fuzzy completion, and how much of the filename (or something
else) do I have to type in?

[Steve Litt]

Lang Hurst said on Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:28:39 -0800

>I copied this off the vim website, I think. In my .vimrc
>
> nnoremap <F5> :buffers<CR>:buffer<Space>
>
>Hit F5, just enter the number of the listed buffers.

This is almost exactly what I need, the two exceptions being:

1) It becomes very time consuming if the number of buffers exceeds the
height of the Vim window. However, this will usually not be the case.

2) F5 is a very inconvenient hotkey. Is there a way I could use
Shift+Ctrl+n ? How would I change the <F5> to change it to
Shift+Ctrl+n ?

[Steve Litt]

Steve Litt said on Tue, 13 Dec 2022 22:29:15 -0500

>2) F5 is a very inconvenient hotkey. Is there a way I could use
> Shift+Ctrl+n ? How would I change the <F5> to change it to
> Shift+Ctrl+n ?

I figured it out. Shift+Ctrl+n is <s-c-n>. Two consecutive pushes of
Alt+n is <a-n><a-n>. Both of those are better for me than F5, and both
are sufficient for my needs.

So this is the solution I'm going to use.

[Enan Ajmain]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2022 08:26:03 +0530

Yegappan Lakshmanan <yega...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Starting with Vim9, fuzzy completion of buffer names is supported.

By fuzzy completion, do you mean ':b cdent' should expand to a buffer
'src/cindent.c'? or do you mean I need to use ':b c*dent'? Because the
latter is slightly different, I wouldn't necessarily call that fuzzy.

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3nan....@gmail.com
https://git.sr.ht/~enan/
https://www.github.com/3N4N

[Enan Ajmain]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2022 22:22:41 -0500
Steve Litt <sl...@troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> For me, :split only makes 2 windows, not a window for every buffer.

I don't think you wanted this, because I have never used it, but if you
do want to open windows for each buffer, you can use ':h bufdo'.

:bufdo split
:bufdo vsplit

[Arun]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2022 at 7:22 PM Steve Litt <sl...@troubleshooters.com> wrote:

Arun said on Tue, 13 Dec 2022 18:22:41 -0800

>Usually, I :split open (maximized) my active files

For me, :split only makes 2 windows, not a window for every buffer.

# vim -o <file1> <file2> ..

If you are already inside vim, you can either manually run ":split <file1>", ":split <file2>" .. OR

    :bufdo split (Close those you do not want)

One nice tip here is that, once you place your buffers in vim to your taste, you can run the command:

    :mksession <session-file>

..to save those windows placement. Later run

    :source <session-file>

..to restore the view. That is a huge time saver sometimes.

> and switch back and
>forth using some helpful mappings (Alt-j and Alt-k). When the number of
>splits are more, I open a tab

I looked up :h tab and found stuff seemingly unrelated. How does one
open a tab?

Either use:

    $ vim -p <file1> <file2> ..

..or inside vime:

    :tabe <file1>

:help tabedit

Regards,

-Arun 

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm

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[North Year]

On 12/13/22 20:09, Steve Litt wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I typically use :bn and :bp to move between buffers, but I have five
>buffers open on my current project, which requires a heck of a lot of
>keystrokes to move to a specific buffer. So I'd like a command to bring
>up a list of buffers so I can chose a specific one.
>
>I've looked up :h buffers and can't find anything. Is there a way I
>could do this?
>
>Theoretically I could use the gvim menu system to do this, but it
>involves taking my hands off home position to use the arrow keys, and
>also, Alt+b is a difficult hotkey, so I'd much rather have some sort of
>Vim command to do it.

Do you want to do it in a barebone vim (i.e) no plugin way, or you are
opt to use plugin to do that?

Might be a bit offtopic here, I use neovim, so to find a buffer I use
"Telescope buffers". As what I remembered, LeaderF, Coc.nvim, and
fzf.vim might be the alternatives in vim.

And if you want to do it in the cmdline, then ":ls" to show all buffers
and then":b xxx" might be the only viable solution. The default vim's
completion system works not that good, it is neither case-insensitive
nor fuzzable (it works similar to the default bash?). I used nvim-cmp as
my auto-completion framework which also works in cmdline, so when I type
":b xxx" an auto-completion popup invokes and I can just complete it
with fuzzy matching. What first comes in my mind of the alternative of
nvim-cmp in vim is coc.nvim, but there are definetely other
alternatives.

[Yegappan Lakshmanan]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 8:55 AM Steve Litt <sl...@troubleshooters.com> wrote:

Yegappan Lakshmanan said on Wed, 14 Dec 2022 08:26:03 +0530

>Starting with Vim9, fuzzy completion of buffer names is supported.
>
>- Yegappan

I did :h fuzzy but it said nothing about fuzzy completion. How do I
achieve fuzzy completion, and how much of the filename (or something
else) do I have to type in?

You need to add ‘fuzzy’ to ‘wildoptions’.  This enables fuzzy completion for command line completion.

- Yegappan

[Yegappan Lakshmanan]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 11:09 AM Enan Ajmain <3nan....@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 14 Dec 2022 08:26:03 +0530
Yegappan Lakshmanan <yega...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Starting with Vim9, fuzzy completion of buffer names is supported.

By fuzzy completion, do you mean ':b cdent' should expand to a buffer
'src/cindent.c'? or do you mean I need to use ':b c*dent'?  Because the
latter is slightly different, I wouldn't necessarily call that fuzzy.

I am referring to the former.  You can enable this by adding ‘fuzzy’ to ‘wildoptions’.

- Yegappan

[Owajigbanam Ogbuluijah]

I have this in my setup

set wildmenu
set wildoptions=pum,fuzzy

With this, the command fuzzy-completes in a pop-up window.

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[IFo Hancroft]

Since no one mentioned this:

You can use ':b<buffer number>' to move to a specific buffer.
When I forget which buffer is which number, I execute ':ls' and then I
do ':b2' for buffer number 2, ':b 1' for the first buffer, etc

[Enan Ajmain]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2022 19:25:19 +0530
Yegappan Lakshmanan <yega...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am referring to the former. You can enable this by adding ‘fuzzy’
> to ‘wildoptions’.

Damn! Didn't even know about it. Thanks.

[BPJ]

I usually have one tab open for each buffer. Then I can jump between the tabs/buffers with COUNT + gt. You can set up 'tabline' to display the tab number and/or use :tabs (which I have mapped to <F-11>t) to see a list of the tabs. (Note: when I'm on termux and don't have too many tabs open I can just point my thumb on the tagline to switch — purists may shudder all they want! :-)

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[Enan Ajmain]

On Thu, 22 Dec 2022 11:38:28 +0100
BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote:
> I usually have one tab open for each buffer. Then I can jump between
> the tabs/buffers with COUNT + gt. You can set up 'tabline' to display
> the tab number and/or use :tabs (which I have mapped to <F-11>t) to
> see a list of the tabs. (Note: when I'm on termux and don't have too
> many tabs open I can just point my thumb on the tagline to switch —
> purists may shudder all they want! :-)

I did shudder, but I'm not gonna begrudge you your way. As long as it
works, no need to fix it. I just wanna add that using tabs as buffers
will keep you from using tabs as window-manager. I use tabs that way:
each tab has a set of windows, split and resized just the way I want.
The tabs are separated a/c a context. The context maybe a project (so
one tab per project) or a module (one tab for 'src/handle/', another for
'src/menu/').

Use cases:

o If I want to open a file without destroying the perfect arrangement of
windows I have got going on, I can open the file in a new tab.
o If I want to work on a different module, I can:
o Open a new tab
o ':tcd src/module/'
o ':e **/*<tab>'
That way I have a new workspace for that module.

If you don't require this workflow, or you've got a substitute for it,
using tabs as buffers won't be any less pure. If not, maybe you can do
a intuitive cost-benefit analysis and see if adopting a different
approach (buffers as buffers and tabs as window-manager) seems better.