vim-oldfiles

Improve Vim's native recent file history.

Motivation

Vim natively keeps a list of your file history in the v:oldfiles variable which you can see with the :oldfiles command or, even better, with :browse oldfiles. Unfortunately, :oldfiles has two significant drawbacks:

1. The output of the command takes up the entire screen and uses Vim's inelegant "more prompt".
2. The list of recent files is not updated as you use Vim, and is only re-written when you close Vim. One can get around this with the use of the :wviminfo and :rviminfo commands, but this is cumbersome and not very intuitive.

This plugin enhances Vim's native capability by addressing these two problems. The command :Oldfiles uses :oldfiles under the hood, but presents a list of your recently visited files in the quickfix list. Once in the quickfix list, you can use all of the standard tools to navigate and search through your list of recent files (e.g. :clist, :cc, :Cfilter, and so on). vim-oldfiles will also automatically filter non-existent and unreadable files from the list, something vanilla :oldfiles does not do.

Further, while you can natively filter the output of :oldfiles using the :filter command, this is a bit clunky. Instead, :Oldfiles (capital O) lets you pass a search pattern as an optional second argument to allow easy filtering.

Before:

:filter /pattern/ oldfiles

With vim-oldfiles:

:Oldfiles /pattern/

If you don't have any other conflicting user commands, this can be shortened even further to simply :Old or even :Ol.

Most importantly, vim-oldfiles keeps the v:oldfiles variable up to date as you use Vim, so when you open a new buffer you will see it at the top of the :Oldfiles list.

Usage

Use :Oldfiles to view your recent files in the quickfix list. You can also use :Oldfiles {pattern} to only show files matching that pattern, or :Oldfiles! {pattern} to only show files that do not match that pattern.

This plugin provides a <Plug>(Oldfiles) mapping which you can use to map the :Oldfiles command like so

nmap <lhs> <Plug>(Oldfiles)

By default, this is mapped to g<C-^>.

See :h Oldfiles for more information.

Installation

Manual

If your version of Vim supports packages (has('packages') returns 1), simply clone this repository to ~/.vim/pack/gpanders/start/vim-oldfiles.

Otherwise, copy the plugin and doc directories into your Vim runtime folder ($HOME/.vim on macOS/Unix, $HOME/vimfiles on Windows) and run :helptags ALL to generate help tags. Use :help Oldfiles to view the help docs.

Pathogen

cd ~/.vim/bundle
git clone https://github.com/gpanders/vim-oldfiles.git

vim-plug

Plug 'gpanders/vim-oldfiles'

FAQ

Q: How can I make the oldfiles list automatically close after I select an entry?

A: Add the following snippet to ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/qf.vim:

if get(w:, 'quickfix_title') =~# 'Oldfiles'
    nnoremap <buffer> <CR> <CR>:cclose<CR>
endif

or if you prefer to keep everything in your ~/.vim/vimrc file, use:

augroup oldfiles
    autocmd!
    autocmd FileType qf if get(w:, 'quickfix_title') =~# 'Oldfiles' | nnoremap <buffer> <CR> <CR>:cclose<CR> | endif
augroup END

See here for more information.