Recently, I discovered the vim buffer magic and began replacing my tab workflow with buffers.
While this is a pur-fect feature, I immediately had some problems when working with large projects. My workflow includes a terminal and one tmux window per project which holds a vim session with all files loaded in buffers. This was cumbersome, because each vim session had about 15-20 loaded buffers. There was a need to be able to switch fast to a buffer or open a buffer in a split.
The first problem was that I needed a way to view all open buffers. Initially, I tried bufexplorer0 but the problem was the split management. It was difficult to control where the split with the buffer I needed will open. So spli(t) (bu)ff(er) was created.
The idea is pretty simple: from the current view, select a split to open in a vertical split, horizontal, or in the same view. Well... and a way to close a split fast if needed.
It has four functions:
- open buffer in a horizontal split.
- open buffer in a vertical split.
- open buffer in the same view.
- close current split.
Only thing missing, is how to know beforehand the buffer number. One idea is a
keybind for executing :buffers/:lists. The need though was to always be
able to view buffers and not having to remember. Two elegant solutions are
bufferline1 and vim-buftabline2. I'm using the latter.
To use vim-spliff, you need to map included commands. Example:
set hidden
noremap <Leader>m :Spliffv<CR>
noremap <Leader>n :Spliffh<CR>
noremap <Leader>o :Spliffo<CR>
noremap <Leader>x :Spliffc<CR>
M to open buffer in vertical split, N to open buffer in horizontal split, O to open buffer in the same window, X to quickly close split.
Obligatory screenshots included:
Opening a buffer in a horizontal split with ^N:
Opening a buffer in a vertical split with ^M:
Opening a buffer in the same view with ^O:
When you need to close a split, just press ^C. If no other split exists, it will not quit vim and output and error in command bar.
