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

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.