ViM: minibufexpl versus bufexplorer plugins

Question

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!

Volumeter

Answer 1

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.

Identical

Hi Benj, thanks for the quick answer! I will try minibuf first. A nice weekend! – Volumeter

Answer 2

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.

Smashandgrab

I've just got around to fuzzyfinder, seems excellent in certain situations (if you have a small tags file). Unfortunately I like to have a massive tags file with all of Visual Studio's libraries in. This causes fuzzy finder to go crazy attempting very broad omni completions as you type... Ah well.. – Identical

CtrlP ftw, for those of you not aware of it. I wish I found out about it few years sooner. However, these tools do not completely eliminated the need for a "buffer explorer" plugin, as often you need to see which files you have open - just to remember their name! – Anemic

@Benj: I use CtrlP, but it's similar to fuzzyfinder. You can search your open buffers, so your tags file won't be hit. I use a list of files in my project as a rootmarker so it doesn't need to search the filesystem. Eliminates the build cache pause (and I build the filelist every time I sync). It's not instant on 10k files, but it's reasonable. – Brandi

Answer 3

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

Town

Answer 4

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).

Afterdinner

Answer 5

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.

Confect

The help site is dead: railmoon.com/vim_plugins/0scan/Entries/2009/9/… – Anemic

Answer 6

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

Muniment