There’s a (Vim Plugin) for That! Part I: Fuzzy Finder

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Rit Li

One of the most popular features of TextMate and RubyMine is Command-T, the ability to jump to a file with just a couple of keystrokes. Vim lacks this feature out of the box, leaving Vim newcomers less efficient.

For the casual Vim users out there, when in doubt, remember this: there is a plugin for that!

FuzzyFinder

Partially enter the thing of interest, i.e., class name, method name, or file name, FuzzyFinder will take you there. Its three most useful features are:

  • When you know where you want to go, type in a couple letters, FuzzyFinder will autocomplete or “fuzzy match” the object in question.
  • When you don’t know where you want to go, FuzzyFinder can be used as a file explorer.
  • When you want to jump into currently opened files, FuzzyFinder can be used as a buffer explorer

Setup

After installing FuzzyFinder, add the following lines to your .vimrc: 

nmap ,f :FufFileWithCurrentBufferDir<CR>
nmap ,b :FufBuffer<CR>
nmap ,t :FufTaggedFile<CR>

Then, generate the tag file: 

 ctags -R --extra=+f .

Usage

One Plugin to Rule Them All

Other Vim plugins, such as NERDTree and Command-T, are great in their own rights; but FuzzyFinder offers the combined features of both plugins with a better UI and workflow.


About Rit Li

programmer and footballer
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  • Jared Carroll

    Sweet Vim tip Rit.

    Command-t in TextMate and RubyMine are some real time saves. With FuzzyFinder you can have the same in Vim. No need to use those kludgy editors. Vim FTW!

  • Rob Pak

    I really missed RubyMine’s search for and open a Ruby class (Command + n or ⌥N) command and similar search for and open file command (Command + shift + n, ⌥⇧N). With fuzzy search and ctags, I now have a reasonable replacement in vim. Thanks!

  • Andy Stewart

    I highly recommend PeepOpen for this.

    http://peepcode.com/products/peepopen

  • Chris Hartjes

    There is also Command-T plugin for vim, but it requires you to do a little bit of work in creating a C extension for Ruby http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3025

    • http://chesmart.in ches

      To be clear, that’s compile a C extension, not create one. Basically it means you run rake make after downloading it :-)

      I find it superior to FuzzyFinder, and though PeepOpen is sexy, it is not cross-platform nor console Vim-friendly.

  • Uri Sharf

    Seem to have a dependency on another utility plugin “l9″…

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