Searching vs Knowing

When I first moved from Textmate to Vim I really missed Command-T; the file finder-opener. At first I tried FuzzyFinder, made popular by Jamis Buck but couldn’t get comfortable with it.

I also missed the project drawer, an ideal way to browse a tree. I gave Nerdtree a shot but again, it just didn’t mesh.

The problem I was having was trying to ease myself into vim with processes that worked well in Textmate.

I felt the greatest benefit when I jumped into vim with both feet. Away went the tree view and in came :e (which don’t forget supports tab-completion). This helped reduce my dependence on the mouse.

With rails.vim, you’re gifted some helper commands for opening files. :Rcontroller (or :Rc to save your fingers) with an argument is a shortcut to load a controller. When in a controller action, :Rview takes you to that action’s view. :help rails for more information.

And lo a pattern emerges. Rather than searching for the file to open, know which file you want to open and do it.

Tags: vim