Re: how to keep a permanent buffer list open?

[Richard Riley]

Brendan Miller <catphive@catphive.net> writes:

> when I launch emacs I'd like to keep a permanent buffer list open to
> one side, so I can visually keep track of what buffers I have open,
> without opening and closing the buffer list.
>
> Is there some customisation out there like that, or can someone give
> pointers on the elisp to open an emacs window on startup and populate
> it with a buffer list, or ibuffer, or whatever?
>
> Basically, I want this to perform the save function that tabs would
> i.e. letting me visually keep track of what files/buffers I have open
> and switch between them with a mouse click. I figure a buffer list
> would be better for keeping track of a large number of buffers, that
> would overflow on a tabbar.
>
> Thanks,
> Brendan
>

I suspect you will tire of that quite soon because of the excessive
screen real estate it consumes - emacs has a very fast buffer display
facility you might consider trying (the open buffers list is quite large
normally because of temp files etc),

I use this

(defalias 'list-buffers 'ibuffer)
(setq ibuffer-shrink-to-minimum-size t)
(setq ibuffer-always-show-last-buffer nil)
(setq ibuffer-sorting-mode 'recency)
(setq ibuffer-use-header-line t)


and

C-x C-b runs the command list-buffers, which is an alias for `ibuffer'
in `emacs-init.el'.

A hot key to open, and a single key to close.

As a new Emacs user you might also consider the excellent ido-mode. My
settings for it are simply

(require 'ido)
(ido-mode)

best of luck!

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