vip: Buffers and Windows
2.3 Buffers and Windows
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In Emacs the text you edit is stored in a “buffer”. See GNU Emacs
Manual, for details. There is always one “current” buffer, also called
the “selected buffer”.
You can see the contents of buffers through “windows” created by
Emacs. When you have multiple windows on the screen only one of them is
selected. Each buffer has a unique name, and each window has a mode
line which shows the name of the buffer associated with the window and
other information about the status of the buffer. You can change the
format of the mode line, but normally if you see ‘**’ at the beginning
of a mode line it means that the buffer is “modified”. If you write out
the content of the buffer to a file, then the buffer will become not
modified. Also if you see ‘%%’ at the beginning of the mode line, it
means that the file associated with the buffer is write protected.
We have the following commands related to windows and buffers.
‘C-n’
Move cursor to the next-window (‘vip-next-window’).
‘X 1’
Delete other windows and make the selected window fill the screen
(‘delete-other-windows’).
‘X 2’
Split current window into two windows (‘split-window-vertically’).
‘X 3’
Show current buffer in two windows.
‘s BUFFER <RET>’
Select or create a buffer named BUFFER (‘vip-switch-to-buffer’).
‘S BUFFER <RET>’
Similar but select a buffer named BUFFER in another window
(‘vip-switch-to-buffer-other-window’).
‘K’
Kill the current buffer if it is not modified or if it is not
associated with a file
(‘vip-kill-buffer’).
‘X B’
List the existing buffers (‘list-buffers’).
As “buffer name completion” is provided, you have only to type in
initial substring of the buffer name which is sufficient to identify it
among names of existing buffers. After that, if you hit <TAB> the rest
of the buffer name will be supplied by the system, and you can confirm
it by <RET>. The default buffer name to switch to will also be
prompted, and you can select it by giving a simple <RET>. See GNU Emacs
Manual for details of completion.
Info Catalog
vip: Important Keys
vip: Vi Commands
vip: Files