Ibuffer Configuration

The Emacs Cat has an informative post on his Ibuffer Configuration. Although it’s built in, ibuffer isn’t enabled by default so you have to load it with require, use-package, or whatever you use for such things. It’s a nice replacement for the default list-buffers.

The Emacs Cat uses ibuffer to group his buffers logically. For example, all his C/C++ buffers, all his Python buffers, and so on are grouped together. That makes it easy to locate relevant buffers and keep things organized if you have a lot of buffers open. He also integrates icons (via all-the-icons-ibuffer) to make it easy to distinguish buffers. See his screenshot to get an idea of what it looks like.

I do something similar. I don’t care for icons in my listings so I skipped that step and I use the ibuffer-vc package, which also groups packages but collects them according to their version control (magit, in my case) category.

All-in-all it makes looking for buffers easier and helps you stay organized. The Emacs Cat uses the buffer listing a lot more than I do so he has F5 as a shortcut for it.

He also mentions Charles Choi’s Casual Ibuffer that he uses to provide a transient menu for the ibuffer listing. If your buffer listings are long, this can be a big help in adjusting the listing dynamically for your current needs.

If you use buffer listings, you should definitely take a look at the Emacs Cat’s post. He’s got a lot of good ideas.

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