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Comment by subsection1h | Hacker News Reader

Can you explain your workflow? I don't understand why people would use tabs in a text editor. Do you open a file, edit it, and then close it after you're done?

I currently have more than 4,000 buffers open in Emacs and I switch between them instantly using fuzzy matching. I rarely kill buffers. I just leave them open.

I'm interested in other workflows and I'd appreciate it if someone would help me understand how tabs can be used effectively. Thanks.

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Personally I like to keep to about 10-15 tabs open with the files I am currently working between. This set of files changes every couple of hours to I can't hold them in memory and it is good to have a nice visual reminder of where what I am looking for might be (bearing in mind that a lot of the time I can't think of the name for what I'm looking for).

Generally, when I'm working on a specific task that affects a handful of files, I'll have all of those files open in tabs. This provides a visual cue for each file (i.e. I know the "main" file is in tab position 1, the class that it calls is in tab #2, etc etc).

Furthermore, I can switch between tabs quickly with cmd + 1, cmd + 2, etc, or via cmd + option + left/right arrow. This can be quicker than fuzzy matching (which sublime text supports, btw), and it requires less mental overhead of remembering what the file is called when you want to switch to it.

I try to always have a set of at most ~5-6 files I'm actually working on (depends on the kind of work I'm doing but in most cases that works pretty well). I can then use Cmd+1/Cmd+2/... to switch between them which is way faster than any fuzzy matching (which I would use to switch to a different file). I work on many projects with very similar file names/directory structure which makes project windows (globally) and tabs (project locally) very nice.

I tried the whole "never close anything and fuzzy match to change", it never worked. I always end up thinking "what was that file i was editing 2 minutes ago called?"

I tend to cull open tabs when I have more than ~10 open. I guarantee I can look at my tab bar, move my hand to the mouse, and click on the tab I want faster than anyone can switch using fuzzy matching

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