How do I search the open buffers in Vim?

Solution 1:

Or

:bufdo vimgrepadd threading % | copen

The quickfix window may not look good for you but it's a hell of a lot more functional than ST2's "results panel" if only because you can keep it open and visible while jumping to locations and interact with it if it's not there.

Solution 2:

ack and Ack.vim handle this problem beautifully. You can also use :help :vimgrep. For example:

:bufdo AckAdd -n threading

will create a nice quickfix window that lets you hop to the cursor position.

Solution 3:

Like the answer of Waz, I have written custom commands for that, published in my GrepCommands plugin. It allows to search over buffers (:BufGrep), visible windows (:WinGrep), tabs, and arguments.

(But like all the other answers, it doesn't handle unnamed buffers yet.)