The Modern Vim Config with Pathogen
Unix gets a whole lot right, but the way it dumps everything into the same filesystem isn't one of them. Traditionally, every application you install will put files under /etc, /usr/bin, /var, /lib, and so on. This makes it impossible to confidently extract an installed application, and lead to the development of various package management tools.
Vim's legacy
Unfortunately, Vim inherited that original philosophy. Terribly misguided attempts have been made in the past to create a package management system for Vim plugins. The Vimball format is particularly painful - non-standard file format, unusable from the commandline, and all files dropped under ~/.vim willy-nilly.
Pathogen
Thankfully, our hero Tim Pope has penned pathogen.vim - a sane package manager for Vim plugins. With pathogen, all of your plugins are stored in separate directories under ~/.vim/bundle:
~/.vim $ ls bundle
IndexedSearch vim-align vim-rails vim-surround
gist vim-cucumber vim-repeat vim-tcomment
jquery vim-fugitive vim-ruby vim-vividchalk
nerdtree vim-git vim-ruby-debugger
snipmate.vim vim-haml vim-shoulda
textile.vim vim-markdown vim-supertab
This means removing a plugin is as simple as deleting that directory. Just the way it should be.
Installation
To get started, I recommend moving your ~/.vim directory out of the way and starting fresh. Then make the ~/.vim/autoload directory and download the pathogen.vim file there.
~/.vim master $ ls autoload
pathogen.vim
Now call pathogen from your .vimrc like such:
call pathogen#infect()
call pathogen#helptags()
…and that's it! This is the only plugin you'll install directly into your ~/.vim directory. After that, any plugin you install into the ~/.vim/bundle directory will be seen by vim. At this point, you can start copying in the contents of your .vimrc and .gvimrc files, taking the time to clean them up as you go.
Automation
To make management of the bundle directory a little easier, I penned up a quick ruby script, which I saved as ~/.vim/update_bundles. Running this script will remove all plugins you've installed manually, and will update them to the latest versions.
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
git_bundles = [
"git://github.com/astashov/vim-ruby-debugger.git",
"git://github.com/ervandew/supertab.git",
"git://github.com/godlygeek/tabular.git",
"git://github.com/hallison/vim-rdoc.git",
"git://github.com/msanders/snipmate.vim.git",
"git://github.com/pangloss/vim-javascript.git",
"git://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree.git",
"git://github.com/timcharper/textile.vim.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-cucumber.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-git.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-haml.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-markdown.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-rails.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-repeat.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-surround.git",
"git://github.com/tpope/vim-vividchalk.git",
"git://github.com/tsaleh/taskpaper.vim.git",
"git://github.com/tsaleh/vim-matchit.git",
"git://github.com/tsaleh/vim-shoulda.git",
"git://github.com/tsaleh/vim-tcomment.git",
"git://github.com/tsaleh/vim-tmux.git",
"git://github.com/vim-ruby/vim-ruby.git",
"git://github.com/vim-scripts/Gist.vim.git",
]
vim_org_scripts = [
["IndexedSearch", "7062", "plugin"],
["jquery", "12107", "syntax"],
]
require 'fileutils'
require 'open-uri'
bundles_dir = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "bundle")
FileUtils.cd(bundles_dir)
puts "trashing everything (lookout!)"
Dir["*"].each {|d| FileUtils.rm_rf d }
git_bundles.each do |url|
dir = url.split('/').last.sub(/\.git$/, '')
puts "unpacking #{url} into #{dir}"
`git clone #{url} #{dir}`
FileUtils.rm_rf(File.join(dir, ".git"))
end
vim_org_scripts.each do |name, script_id, script_type|
puts "downloading #{name}"
local_file = File.join(name, script_type, "#{name}.vim")
FileUtils.mkdir_p(File.dirname(local_file))
File.open(local_file, "w") do |file|
file << open("http://www.vim.org/scripts/download_script.php?src_id=#{script_id}").read
end
end
This script (and more) is avilable in my dotfiles repo.