If you have a nerdtree file navigation window on the left of the current buffer and use :bd1, you will find that the nerdtree window will occupy the whole window. When you open another buffer, you have to manually resize the nerdtree window to a smaller size, which is super annoying.

How to prevent this behaviour?

An easy way is to switch to another buffer first, and then delete the previous buffer. We can create a shortcut for this:

nnoremap \d :bp<cr>:bd #<cr>

In the above command, :bp stands for :bprevious, which will change the buffer to the previous buffer. # after the :bd command represents the last used buffer, i.e., the buffer we want to delete.

There is also a Nvim plugin called vim-bufkill, which specifically address this issue. After installing this plugin, you can use :BD to delete the current buffer without closing the window.

References

  1. In Nvim, bd[elete] will delete the current buffer. But the window for the current buffer will also be closed. ↩︎