Vim Telescope

Goals

1. Describe telescope.
2. Skillfully use it.

What?

Telescope is a fuzzy finder plugin for Neovim written in Lua. It helps you search for files, text, buffers, help tags, and more using an interactive floating window. It acts like a fast, flexible “Spotlight” inside your Neovim setup.

Why?

• Saves time by letting you quickly find and open files, buffers, or content.
• Reduces the need to remember exact filenames or commands.
• Integrates tightly with Neovim and supports extensions and custom layouts.
• Offers previews so you can see results before jumping.

How?

Installation (using packer)

use {
  'nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim',
  requires = { {'nvim-lua/plenary.nvim'} }
}

Useful Commands (in command mode)

- :Telescope find_files — Fuzzy search for files.
- :Telescope live_grep — Search text inside files using ripgrep.
- :Telescope buffers — Switch between open buffers.
- :Telescope help_tags — Search Neovim’s help docs.
- :Telescope oldfiles — Browse recently opened files.

Recommended Shortcuts

local builtin = require('telescope.builtin')
local map = vim.keymap.set
local opts = { noremap = true, silent = true }

map('n', '<leader>ff', builtin.find_files, opts)   -- Find files
map('n', '<leader>fg', builtin.live_grep, opts)    -- Grep text
map('n', '<leader>fb', builtin.buffers, opts)      -- List buffers
map('n', '<leader>fh', builtin.help_tags, opts)    -- Help tags
map('n', '<leader>fo', builtin.oldfiles, opts)     -- Recent files

These keymaps make Telescope fast and intuitive to use.