How to switch between visible buffers in emacs

emacskeyboard shortcuts

If I am in split-screen viewing 2 different buffers on Emacs and the cursor is on the top buffer, what's a quick way to move the cursor to the bottom buffer?

Bonus question: if I know a command, is there an easy way to identify what key-combo it's bound to, if any?

Best Answer

To switch to other buffer use: C-x o.

Describe key: C-h k.

Related Solutions

Pin Emacs buffers to windows (for cscope)

Put this in your .emacs file:

;; Toggle window dedication

(defun toggle-window-dedicated ()

"Toggle whether the current active window is dedicated or not"

(interactive)

(message 

 (if (let (window (get-buffer-window (current-buffer)))

       (set-window-dedicated-p window 

        (not (window-dedicated-p window))))

    "Window '%s' is dedicated"

    "Window '%s' is normal")

 (current-buffer)))

Then bind it to some key - I use the Pause key:

(global-set-key [pause] 'toggle-window-dedicated)

And then use it to "dedicate" the window you want locked. then cscope can only open files from its result window in some OTHER window. Works a charm. I specifically use it for exactly this purpose - keeping one source file always on screen, while using cscope in a second buffer/window, and looking at cscope results in a third.

Using Emacs as an IDE

You'll have to be specific as to what you mean by "the rest". Except for the object inspector (that I"m aware of), emacs does all the above quite easily:

editor (obvious)
compiler - just run M-x compile and enter your compile command. From there on, you can just M-x compile and use the default. Emacs will capture C/C++ compiler errors (works best with GCC) and help you navigate to lines with warnings or errors.
Debugging - similarly, when you want to debug, type M-x gdb and it will create a gdb buffer with special bindings
Documentation Lookup - emacs has excellent CScope bindings for code navigation. For other documentation: Emacs also has a manpage reader, and for everything else, there's the web and books.
version control - there are lots of Emacs bindings for various VCS backends (CVS, SCCS, RCS, SVN, GIT all come to mind)

Edit: I realize my answer about documentation lookup really pertained to code navigation. Here's some more to-the-point info:

Google searching will no doubt reveal further examples.

As the second link shows, looking up functions (and whatever) in other documentation can be done, even if not supported out of the box.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Pin Emacs buffers to windows (for cscope)

Using Emacs as an IDE

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