How to handle multiple directories in vim?

Question

I always have at least two directories in my projects:

• One with information about the projects: info.txt, log.txt
• One with code

And every project has a name.

How to group and jump efficiently between those directories?

How to save those multiple folders in my session?

Other editors do this task natively, like sublimetext:

But I don't know how to quickly switch from log.txt in one directory to package.json in another one.

Having both directories together wouldn't make sense, since one directory goes into a git repository and the other one don't

How do you do it?

Answer 1

If you open vim with your two files (vim path/to/log.txt path/to/package.json), each file is open in a buffer. You can switch from buffers to buffers in different ways:

• :bnext and :bprevious (to go to the.... next and previous buffers)
• :buffer n where n is a number, each buffer has a number, you can see them with :buffers (For these I have two mappings: <space>a for previous and <space>s for next, to easily go from buffer to buffer)

I invite you to read:

:help buffers to be more familiar with the concept of buffers, windows and tabs.

Regarding the directories, I'd suggest to start your vim instance from the root directory of your project and work from there.

Answer 2

One handy keymapping I found years ago and have had in my vimrc ever since is:

cnoremap %% <C-R>=fnameescape(expand("%:p:h")."/")<CR>

It's a command-line mode mapping that expands %% to the directory of the current file, complete with any necessary escapes for spaces or other funny characters.

Combine this with padawin's buffer suggestions and you've got fairly quick access to any directory you have an open file in via :cd %% or :e %%new_file_to_open.

If you're persisting your open buffers in a session file, then this automatically comes for free.