I am thinking of installing a buffer explorer for vim. Both minibufexpl and bufexplorer have very good rating. Can anyone explain the differences or the pros and cons between them. Or is only a matter of taste?
Thanks!
I've used both of those plugins. I used minibuf explorer for a long while (couple of years) and it was pretty good except in situations where you have large numbers of buffers open. Then it just becomes confusing and starts to take up alot of screen space.
buffer explorer doesn't give you a constant view of what buffers you have open but it's actually a much more solid (less flaky) plugin and when you switch into buffer explore mode it lets you quickly delete buffers you're not using etc. I like it much more now.
Basically, I'd say minibuf if you don't regularly edit more than 8 files. Buf explorer if you edit tonnes of files at once.
i've used both but moved to fuzzyfinder. minibuf gives you a little window to easily switch between buffers and bufexplorer gives you a window you can invoke to call an open buffer.
Now let me sell you on fuzzyfinder, you invoke the window and start typing to match the name of the file that's open. Could be the buffer id or any part to the full path of the file including the file name. Fuzzyfinder also works with your tags file so you can easily jump to any tag within your project. Also works with directories, markers, and most recently used files. It can also open in a split window, tab, or the current window.
I think that using MiniBufExplorer with a lot of files (more than 8-10) is probably not very efficient since it takes a lot of screen space unless you have a big monitor.
I ran into some issues using MiniBufExplorer with multiple buffer splits open at the same time, and I modified the plugin to get around these limitations.
The part that made the plugin unusable was the fact that there was no indication of what buffer the cursor was currently active in, and it was very easy to get lost while switching buffers. I use H and L to move to the previous/next buffer.
I also updated the plugin so that it always reflects the current buffer's state, wether it's unmodified or modified, without having to switch buffers for the plugin to update.
I think these changes really make MBE much more usable, both in terms of the sheer number of open buffers as well as moving between them, which is important.
You can find the updated changes here: https://github.com/fholgado/minibufexpl.vim
I have tried them both and I prefer minibuf. The fact that you have all your buffers and their numbers at a glance allows you to switch to the buffer you want with:
N CTRL-^
where N is the number of the buffer you want to open.
I haven't found any other buffer explorer as fast. However, as Benj said, if you often work with many files you'd better choose something like bufexplorer or selectbuf (a kind of bufexplorer more customizable).
You also can try 0scan plugin. Just press 0b and select buffer or enter tags like dir name or extension of part of the file name to reduce selection list size.
If you selected buffer but it wasn't the only one from the list you can select next or previous after with keys 0j and 0k. Good if you need to switch between buffers from certain dir or with certain extension.
I first tried minibufexpl but noticed some strange characters would show up while in insert mode, like repeating characters when typing a space character or using navigation arrows or hjkl. Then uninstalled and tried BufExplorer, which I like better and the issue of strange charaters was resolved for me. I use vim on both my mac and ubuntu; and had the strange charater issue on both until I removed minibufexpl. My vim setup is here: https://github.com/pixelhandler/vim-config
Related
(Documenting this here because I couldn't find a good answer online.)
When using UltiSnips, the documentation says (2:12 in this screencast) that writing the .snippets file is enough to cause an automatic reload of the snippet. However, this doesn't work for me. What's happening?
I had this question myself, as frequently updating my own .snippets files and not having them immediately available is unpleasant. After some experiments I discovered the answer:
:call UltiSnips#RefreshSnippets()
In case you are curious, I found it by typing :call <C-d> (a very long list, by the way).
However, this command does not update the autocompletion list of YouCompleteMe (which is mostly irrelevant, but sometimes you might want to browse through your options with description next to it).
Looks like the UltiSnips reload applies within a vim instance. So make sure to open & save the snippets file within the vim instance that you want the changes to take effect in.
To help with this, the command :UltiSnipsEdit will open the .snippets file corresponding to your correct file. You can configure how the snippets file opens using this command:
g:UltiSnipsEditSplit Defines how the edit window is opened. Possible
values:
|normal| Default. Opens in the current window.
|tabdo| Opens the window in a new tab.
|horizontal| Splits the window horizontally.
|vertical| Splits the window vertically.
|context| Splits the window vertically or
horizontally depending on context.
Sample usage in .vimrc: let g:UltiSnipsEditSplit="context"
Note that this doesn't work as well if you'd like to make the changes in a different snippets file (e.g. you're working on a cpp file and you want to add a snippet for all c files (and your cpp.snippets file does extends c). If you're in this situation and you're editing your snippets frequently, consider keeping that snippets file open in a tab/pane.
Other suggestions / input welcome!
(from Documentation)
I haven't been able to find a satisfactory answer to this either. Until somebody can post something better, I recommend just using
:e!
This reloads the current window to the most recently-saved file. I know it's not much, but it's what I'm using until I find a better way to do it.
Very often (as in multiple times an hour), when I save my file :w, vim tells me "E13: File exists (add ! to override)"
I don't know why it does this, I can't reliably reproduce it, it feels random.
This is my vimrc, note that it sets nobackup, nowritebackup, and noswapfile, and there is a function to strip trailing whitespace that gets run when I save a file.
Also, I tend to have 20 vims open at once, all backgrounded, often editing the same file. Also not improbable that I have the same buffer open in multiple windows (ie :vsp) and might open it, then reopen it with the e command a lot, possibly from a relative filepath, or possibly from an absolute one (the cmap %/ <C-R>=expand("%:p:h")."/"<CR>). No idea if any of this matters. Next time I have this issue, I'll check my ls and report anything odd.
Update:
When I tried to save "lib/seeing_is_believing/wrap_expressions.rb" (note that this is a different file than the one in the gif), this happened again. Here is the ss, it's buffer 3:
Update2 (for #mMontu)
I just realized that there are two errors happening here. The one in the screenshot is the readonly thing. The one in the gif is the more common one, E13: File exists (add ! to override)
The one I just hit is E13 File exists, for this one, readonly is not set:
Update 3
I'm pretty sure the problem is the ZoomWin plugin. I had switched it up to a newer version, and it simply didn't work right. So I stopped using it for a bit, and didn't have this issue. Then switched it back, b/c I miss its functionality (it's my favourite vim plugin), and the problems started again. Possibly it's ZoomWin in conjunction with NerdTree window. Probably not the lib authors' faults, vim in general seems fragile and buggy. Maybe I'll try NeoVim, see if they've done a better job. Maybe it's time to try Atom or Emacs again.
It seems that if there were read errors opening the file, Vim will print an error on :w. This can be seen by running :f:
"MANIFEST.in" [Read errors] 1 line --100%--
The errors aren't necessarily errors in reading the contents of file; they can be caused by a plugin.
I think the main problem is that the file has been modified externally, see http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Have_Vim_check_automatically_if_the_file_has_changed_externally to reload it whenever this happens
One thing I like about Sublime Text is that you can drag any folder in the left panel and this folder can be expanded independently from the others. How can I achieve the same functionality in Vim?
I'm currently using NERDTree which currently supports a single root. When you open another folder it replaces the current hierarchy. So I wouldn't mind dropping this plugin in favor of another solution.
The netrw plugin that ships with Vim allows to open multiple, different splits to different locations, e.g. vertically with :Vexplore.
To make it show a recursive tree, use:
:let g:netrw_liststyle=3
I don't know any plugin that does this, but from my brief forays into NERDTree's source code, I know that modifying the plugin to do what you want is not out of the question. It would involve delving into the logic and modifying / commenting out the parts that search and re-use the current NERDTree buffer. If you're familiar with Vimscript, not a huge challenge. (Maybe you could even introduce a configuration setting for it and send it to the author for inclusion.)
It took me a while, but I managed to work something out.
I made it into a separate plugin: Vimpanel
I put a lot of other usefull things in there, apart from the "killer feature" of being able to have multiple roots.
This is my issue with Vim: you have it open for a couple of days. You're ready to close vim. You don't necessarily want to save all files... you want to skip any files which don't have modified changes, and you want to be left (or be asked) what you want to do with the remaining buffers with unmodified changes…
For anyone that has used Photoshop, this is very familiar… you use it for a week, and when you close Photoshop, it is really trying to close the application, and skips all files which haven't been touched, let's you chose what you want to do with the remaining files, and then closes itself.
It seems like every time I close Vim, I have to go through this circus of doing :qa, then running into a file, doing :bd!, then doing :qa again, run into a file I want, :w, and it's just a huge pain. There has to be a better way of doing this.
If it isn't already obvious… I have :set hidden in my .vimrc.
How about
:confirm qa
It asks you for each modified file whether to save or abandon it (or all remaining). This is the same behavior that GVIM exhibits when you close it via the X in the window title.
does :xa! solve your problem ?
:xa[ll]! Write all changed buffers, even the ones that are readonly,
and exit Vim. If there are buffers without a file name or
which cannot be written for another reason, Vim will not quit.
I was able to find the plugin BufOnly, and then with the help of someone else on StackOverflow, I got an answer that satisfies me:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/14690570/240287
When I edit multiple files I oftentimes want to go back and forth between the last edited files. I know about :bn(ext) and :bp(revious) to switch between buffers but they don't keep the history of the last used files. Instead they use the order in which the files were opened. E.g., if I opened the files in this order
A, B, C
an my navigation history would be
A, B, C, B
then :bprevious in the last buffer (B) would send me to A. Is there a command or plugin that would send me to C? I know of Ctrl-6, but this only switches between the last two buffers. I would like to go back and forth multiple buffers.
I have been wanting the same functionality for quite some time now as well. Your question inspired me to finally do something about it. Have a look at bufsurf, a small plugin that provides the required functionality. It provides the user with two commands:
:BufSurfBack
to navigate backwards in history, and similarly:
:BufSurfForward
to navigate forwards in history. For each window or tab a separate navigation history is kept in memory. Please let me know if you experience any problems, I did not have the chance to test this extensively yet.
Check out the lustyjuggler buffer plugin. It's awesome for this. It keeps the buffers in last used order and maps them to the home row keys so you can very quickly go back/forth between them.
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2050
You can see it demoed toward the end of my most recent vim screencast were I go over buffers:
http://lococast.net/archives/185