navigate the buffer list

Question

I've been looking for years for a way to quickly select a buffer from the buffer list.

scenario:

open the buffer list with :ls
select the desired buffer with arrows or whatever
open said buffer pressing enter

That would save a lot of time and keystrokes and I reckon really fits the workflow, how come it's not a default thing?
Is there a way to achieve it?

There are many plugins that do that, CtrlP, LeaderF, fzf.vim, vim-select etc — Maxim Kim, Mar 03 '22 at 14:10
(I can't find it back but I'm fairly sure we have a duplicate for this question) There are tons of plugins doing that but a nice native mapping is the following: nnoremap gb :ls<CR>:b<space> it lists the open buffer and starts :b so that you can type and get autocompletion of the buffer names. — statox, Mar 03 '22 at 15:00
@statox's comment provides the simplest and most "economical" answer. — r_31415, Aug 02 '22 at 00:47
@r_31415 comment reminded me of this question, after a quick search it turns out that I got this mapping from an answer to my own question in 2016 — statox, Aug 02 '22 at 12:16

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 04 '22 at 11:31

I like to use the fzf.vim plugin for that purpose. It includes a command where you can select a buffer, and also fuzzy-search for one (as its name suggests, it fuzzy-searches using fzf).

I really love this plugin, I really use it a lot. In fact, you can search for a lot of things with it : Lines in file, lines in buffer, Helptags, Colorschemes, Commands... and you can add other sources yourself !

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '22 at 15:09

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In addition to the above mentioned plugins, you can also try using the buffer selector plugin:

https://github.com/yegappan/bufselect

BTW, patch 8.2.4463 added fuzzy completion for buffer names. With this feature, you can type a few characters from the buffer name and complete the buffer name.

answered Mar 03 '22 at 15:09

Yegappan Lakshmanan

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ouch this plugin doesn't seem to work with neovim – Salomanuel Mar 03 '22 at 15:45
If you're using neovim, you should probably look into telescope (and maybe add the nvim tag to your question as well). – Biggybi Mar 03 '22 at 19:44

Nisarg Parikh · Answer 3 · 2024-03-09T05:47:17.190

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I am using minimalist plugin 'romgrk/barbar.nvim' . commands are listed on its GitHub page

You can also add your key mappings to quickly execute those commands to switch buffers/ close / prev/ next buffer

Here is snapshot of my init.lua where I configured, also if you can see on top, it shows Tab name with icon as per plugin

edited Mar 09 '24 at 05:47

answered Mar 08 '24 at 11:48

Nisarg Parikh

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Welcome and thank you for writing an answer. I think your answer could be even better if you not only linked to the GitHub page but also included a short example how the plugin would be used to improve on the scenario detailed in the question. – Friedrich Mar 08 '24 at 12:19
Thanks for feedback. Added snapshot – Nisarg Parikh Mar 09 '24 at 05:47
Yeah, kind of better. Prefer to post text as text, though. Sure, you can't capture the icon but the mappings should be text in a code section. Why text is better is explained in this SO meta question. The same reasons apply here as well. – Friedrich Mar 09 '24 at 14:18
@Friedrich that section is copy pasted from github link which I have already provided. you can copy text from there itself. – Nisarg Parikh Mar 11 '24 at 08:07

navigate the buffer list

3 Answers3