How to effectively work with multiple files in Vim

Question

I\'ve started using Vim to develop Perl scripts and am starting to find it very powerful.

One thing I like is to be able to open multiple files at once with:

<

Answer 1

If using only vim built-in commands, the best one that I ever saw to switch among multiple buffers is this:

nnoremap f :set nomore:ls:set more:b

It perfectly combines both :ls and :b commands -- listing all opened buffers and waiting for you to input the command to switch buffer.

Given above mapping in vimrc, once you type f,

• All opened buffers are displayed
• You can:
  • Type 23 to go to buffer 23,
  • Type # to go to the alternative/MRU buffer,
  • Type partial name of file, then type , or to autocomplete,
  • Or just or to stay on current buffer

A snapshot of output for the above key mapping is:

:set nomore|:ls|:set more
  1  h    "script.py"    line 1
  2 #h  + "file1.txt"    line 6  -- '#' for alternative buffer
  3 %a    "README.md"    line 17 -- '%' for current buffer
  4       "file3.txt"    line 0  -- line 0 for hasn't switched to
  5     + "/etc/passwd"  line 42 -- '+' for modified
:b ' here'

In the above snapshot:

• Second column: %a for current, h for hidden, # for previous, empty for hasn't been switched to.
• Third column: + for modified.

Also, I strongly suggest set hidden. See :help 'hidden'.