Question

I work in Vim with lots of open buffers in various windows on various tabs. I know it’s simple to just load one of the existing buffers into my current window. However, some of my buffers for large files use folding expressions that cause delay of several seconds when loading them into new window. On the other hand, if they are already open in window on a tab page I just need to hop to that tab page and that window.

I gather there’s no command to do this directly. Or is there?

To find window with desired buffer I could write a function that does this:

1. for each tab
2. for each window on each tab
3. check each window to see if it has my desired buffer loaded
4. move cursor to found window OR open buffer in window on new tab if not found

Has someone already written this? Or am I missing simpler way of getting what I want?

UPDATE: The ‘switchbuf’ answers were exactly what I was looking for, but I still may end up using a custom function because (1) I was not understanding the behavior of ‘newtab’ option, since windows were still being split, and (2) my function accommodates searches for unloaded files:

function! Sbuf(filename)
    let myvar = ''
    tabdo let myvar = bufwinnr(a:filename) > 0 ? tabpagenr() 
                    \    . ' ' . bufwinnr(a:filename) : myvar
    if myvar > ''
        silent execute split(myvar)[0] . "tabn"
        silent execute split(myvar)[1] . "wincmd w"
    else
        execute 'tab drop ' . a:filename
    endif
endfunction

Answer 1

Just set the switchbuf option:

:set switchbuf=useopen,usetab
:sbuf [filename]

If you don’t want the switchbuf option turned on all the time then you will need to write a function which changes and then resets the switchbuf option.

function MySwitchBuf(filename)
  " remember current value of switchbuf
  let l:old_switchbuf = &switchbuf
  try
    " change switchbuf so other windows and tabs are used
    set switchbuf=useopen,usetab
    execute 'sbuf' a:filename
  finally
    " restore old value of switchbuf
    let &switchbuf = l:old_switchbuf
  endtry
endfunction