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:

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Answer 1

I made a very simple video showing the workflow that I use. Basically I use the Ctrl-P Vim plugin, and I mapped the buffer navigation to the Enter key.

In this way I can press Enter in normal mode, look at the list of open files (that shows up in a small new window at the bottom of the screen), select the file I want to edit and press Enter again. To quickly search through multiple open files, just type part of the file name, select the file and press Enter.

I don't have many files open in the video, but it becomes incredibly helpful when you start having a lot of them.

Since the plugin sorts the buffers using a MRU ordering, you can just press Enter twice and jump to the most recent file you were editing.

After the plugin is installed, the only configuration you need is:

nmap  :CtrlPBuffer

Of course you can map it to a different key, but I find the mapping to enter to be very handy.