Introduction

I've had my vim configs running amok for years - outdated plugins, mappings endlessly stomping on each other, and random cargo-cult functions performing terrible deeds. Here is my attempt to fix this sad state of affairs. I realize that my configs might be of use to those who are new to Vim, so I've made them publicly available.

I do not view myself as a seasoned vim user. I understand the basic paradigms, but I've never gotten around to scripting my own plugins. Please excuse any conventions that I might have (read: probably) broken, and feel free to submit pull requests to fix this repo up - I would highly appreciate that.

Below is a picture of my Vim setup. Note the file system on the left (nerdtree plugin) error detection on line 184 (syntastic), tags on the right (tagbar), and statusline packed with useful info (airline). If these things appeal to you, follow along and I'll explain how to install and subsequently use this setup. It might take some work to get used to, but it is definitely worth it if you plan to use Vim in the long term.

Prerequisites

This installation guide is proven to work for OS X El Capitan, but it will probably work for (reasonably) earlier versions. It probably works for Ubuntu as well, but I haven't tested it yet. For other Linux distros, you'll have to modify the installation script yourself - don't worry, it's not that complicated ;).

The following are utilities that you must have installed on your system before proceeding. If you're on a Mac, use Homebrew to install them. If you're on Linux, use the relevant package manager. If you're on Windows, well... I can't really help you there. Do whatever it is Windows users do to install packages.

• Homebrew (Mac OS only)
• curl
• git
• vim (preferably a 7.4.X version)
• python2.7.X (earlier versions may or may not work)

DISCLAIMER: The installation will fetch all of the packages and put them in ~/.vim/bundle, courtesy of the Vundle package manager. Some packages (like YouCompleteMe, for example) are system-dependent and require compilation. While my installation script should do all of this for the OSes I've enumerated above, there might be some kinks you'll have to work through, though it's unlikely. If you run into any problems, feel free to open up an issue or email me.

Preparation

The installation script in this repo does a few things. Make sure you have a basic understanding of all of them before proceeding:

1. It installs Vundle, a package manager. I'll touch more on this later.
2. It uses Vundle to install the packages specified in vimrc.
3. It appends the index alias to your .bash_profile. This alias is a convenience command for invoking ctags (I will cover this later).
4. It installs the proper version of ctags with Homebrew or apt-get.
5. It compiles YouCompleteMe, the code-completion plugin.

Before you install, you need to make sure that you've gotten rid of your ~/.vim directory and your ~/.vimrc, or at least put those files somewhere safe.

Installation

$ git clone https://github.com/mgouzenko/vimconfig ~/.vim
$ cd ~/.vim
$ ./install.sh

Vim versions < 7.4

If your Vim version is 7.3.X, some plugins won't work. To disable those plugins, comment out the relevant 'Plugin' line in vimrc.

In addition, Vim versions under 7.4 don't check .vim/vimrc for your vimrc file. You have to put the following line in your ~/.vimrc:

runtime vimrc

Install Powerline Fonts

Some packages, like airline, use powerline. Powerline is a statusline plugin for VIM and bash, and other applications. To get powerline to render properly, you have install powerline and powerline fonts on your system. This is a separate section because this actually has nothing to do with your vim setup. Because this requires some manual configuration, I haven't included it in the installation script.

Steps to Install Powerline

Install powerline as specified here. Then, install some powerline fonts on your system, as specified here. Finally - and this depends on what emulator you use - set the terminal emulator's font to one of the powerline fonts that you just installed.

Install a Cool Bash Prompt

The normal bash prompt is boring and not particularly smart. Fortunately, the vim promptline plugin helps to generate a really cool bash prompt.

The generated prompt can be configured to do many things, but these are the most important for me personally:

1. Smart directory listing: the prompt calculates how deep you are in your file system, and abbreviates the path so that it doesn't get too long.
2. Git branch: if you're in a git repo, the prompt tells you which branch you're on.
3. Hostname: The promptline lists the hostname, but only if you've ssh'ed into the machine.
4. Exit code: Displays the exit code of the last command if that command failed.

To get a basic promptline going, you need powerline. Once you have that installed properly, you can run the following script to generate and install a better promptline:

$ ./install_promptline.sh

Then, source your ~/.bash_profile for the change to take effect:

$ source ~/.bash_profile

This script generates a promptline and stores it in ~/.promptline.sh. Then, it adds a line to your .bash_profile to source the generated promptline.