How to effectively work with multiple files in Vim

Solution 1:

Why not use tabs (introduced in Vim 7)? You can switch between tabs with :tabn and :tabp, With :tabe <filepath> you can add a new tab; and with a regular :q or :wq you close a tab. If you map :tabn and :tabp to your F7/F8 keys you can easily switch between files.

If there are not that many files or you don't have Vim 7 you can also split your screen in multiple files: :sp <filepath>. Then you can switch between splitscreens with Ctrl+W and then an arrow key in the direction you want to move (or instead of arrow keys, w for next and W for previous splitscreen)

Solution 2:

Listing

To see a list of current buffers, I use:

:ls

Opening

To open a new file, I use

:e ../myFile.pl

with enhanced tab completion (put set wildmenu in your .vimrc).

Note: you can also use :find which will search a set of paths for you, but you need to customize those paths first.

Switching

To switch between all open files, I use

:b myfile

with enhanced tab completion (still set wildmenu).

Note: :b# chooses the last visited file, so you can use it to switch quickly between two files.

Using windows

Ctrl-W s and Ctrl-W v to split the current window horizontally and vertically. You can also use :split and :vertical split (:sp and :vs)

Ctrl-W w to switch between open windows, and Ctrl-W h (or j or k or l) to navigate through open windows.

Ctrl-W c to close the current window, and Ctrl-W o to close all windows except the current one.

Starting vim with a -o or -O flag opens each file in its own split.

With all these I don't need tabs in Vim, and my fingers find my buffers, not my eyes.

Note: if you want all files to go to the same instance of Vim, start Vim with the --remote-silent option.

Solution 3:

:ls

for list of open buffers

:bp previous buffer
:bn next buffer
:bn (n a number) move to n'th buffer
:b <filename-part> with tab-key providing auto-completion (awesome !!)

In some versions of vim, bn and bp are actually bnext and bprevious respectively. Tab auto-complete is helpful in this case.

Or when you are in normal mode, use ^ to switch to the last file you were working on.

Plus, you can save sessions of vim

:mksession! ~/today.ses

The above command saves the current open file buffers and settings to ~/today.ses. You can load that session by using

vim -S ~/today.ses

No hassle remembering where you left off yesterday. ;)