Add commands for number-based buffer switching

[tmke8]

I know I can switch buffers with space+b and then searching or moving up-and-down, but this still introduces some kind of mental cost for buffer switching, especially when you do it frequently. I also feel like a modern editor should show a list of the open files.

With (n)vim, both of these problems are solved by buftabline.nvim. It shows the open buffers in the "tabline" and allows switching to them with +buffer number. This allows fast access to the first 10 buffers, at almost no mental cost. (From experience I can tell you that once you get used to this, all other methods of buffer switching will feel excruciatingly slow.)

I know that keymappings in helix deliberately do not make use of the numbers, because they're farther away, but this isn't really an editing command, so I think it's fine in this case, though I don't know how you see this.

[pickfire]

Personally I don't like this because it waste space (I am on a 80x24 terminal). May seemed useful at times but I might still use space b for now. If it shows up only when space is pressed then I am okay with it.

[kirawi]

Could be something configurable.

[antoyo]

As an additional argument, I find this feature almost required to make any use of the commands goto_next_buffer and goto_previous_buffer as we currently have no way to know what are the next and previous buffers.

[kirawi]

As a bufferline implementation was merged a while ago, I'm marking this as a good-first-issue for the fast buffer switching shortcut.

[Elias-Graf]

I have implemented the command buffer-goto here: #4756.

I've currently implemented it only as a normal, typed command. So no +<i>, nor space + <i>.

Usage: :buffer-goto <i> or :b <i>.

I've also refactored the "previous" / "next" buffer commands a bit, as there was some functional overlap, and a naming collision with the function goto_buffer(&Editor, Direction) (now named goto_buffer_by_direction).

I personally would love to see switching buffers using a shortcut like ctrl + <i>. That would match many other programs behaviour. For example browsers, some terminals (Windows terminal uses ctrl+alt + <i>, and iTerm 2 on MacOS cmd+<i>), Windows explorer, and probably a lot more I can't think of right now. Interestingly, VS Code choose ctrl + <i> as shortcut for pane (you call those "Windows") switching, and alt + <i> for tabs. That's probably why I've never used it there. Instead, I mainly utilized ctrl + tab (it cycles through the open editors).

I would be happy to implement more functionality, but I'm not really sure if that would collide with other shortcuts, nor have I figured out how to do that yet :D.

[Elias-Graf]

Update: Added shortcut support

I've now added support for shortcuts in the previously mentioned pull request. I've gone with the combinations that I was already most familiar with (see above).
One can now do: ctrl+<[1-9]> to quickly access buffers. I've already found it very nice to use, and even tried to use it while editing my fork with the upstream version, which sadly didn't work, lol.

[DreckSallow]

Hello! I've added a PR #8198 to close this issue because it has been open for a long time.