Open a buffer as a vertical split in VIM

Question

If you are editing a file in VIM and then you need to open an existing buffer (e.g. from your buffer list: :buffers) how can you open it in a vertical split?

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Answer 1

You can also combine :ls that lists your current buffers and the commands to open the desired buffer in either

1. current window: :b
2. vertical split: :vsp | b
3. horizontal split: :sp | b

For this, I've added the following mappings to my ~/.vimrc (order of mappings represents the above list of desired windows)

 nnoremap b :ls:b
 nnoremap v :ls:vsp\|b
 nnoremap s :ls:sp\|b

Based on this, you can see the buffer list as soon as you hit

1. b
2. v
3. s

and then just enter the desired buffer number N. This will then open the buffer in the desired window. You can of course still use a part of the buffer name bufname as well.

I mapped the to , based on

let mapleader = ","

For some people (e.g. me) this could even replace plugins like MiniBufExpl and thus save space on the screen.