How to use Tim Pope's Pathogen.

pathogen.md

How to use Tim Pope's Pathogen.

I'll assume you are on Linux or Mac OSX. For Windows, replace ~/.vim/ with $HOME\vimfiles\ and forward slashes with backward slashes.

The idea.

Vim plugins are collections of specialized scripts that you are supposed to put in "standard" locations under your ~/.vim/ directory. Syntax scripts go into ~/.vim/syntax/, plugin scripts go into ~/.vim/plugin, documentation goes into ~/.vim/doc/ and so on. That design can lead to a messy config where it quickly becomes hard to manage your plugins.

This is not the place to explain the technicalities behind Pathogen but the basic concept is quite straightforward: each plugin lives in its own directory under ~/.vim/bundle/, where each directory simulates the standard structure of your ~/.vim/ directory.

Let us take two simple, imaginary, plugins called foo and bar as an example. With the standard installation method we should have this mess:

~/.vim/doc/foo.txt
....../plugin/bar.vim
............./foo.vim
....../syntax/bar.vim

With Pathogen, we maintain the standard structure but we move it under ~/.vim/bundle/<pluginname>/:

~/.vim/bundle/bar/plugin/bar.vim
................./syntax/bar.vim
............./foo/doc/foo.txt
................./plugin/foo.vim

Now, our plugins are easy to delete, update or modify because they are carefully segregated from each other.

Sometimes, you will find a single-file script that you want to install properly. In such situations, you are expected to follow this process…

1. Identify the nature of that script. Is it a generic plugin? A filetype plugin? A syntax script? Let us assume it is a syntax script.

2. Come up with a descriptive name for that single-file plugin, say baz.

3. Place your script in ~/.vim/bundle/baz/syntax/baz.vim.

Prepare your environment.

If they don't exist already, create these two directories:

~/.vim/autoload/
~/.vim/bundle/

Get Pathogen.

Save https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tpope/vim-pathogen/master/autoload/pathogen.vim to

~/.vim/autoload/pathogen.vim

Configure Pathogen.

Put these lines at the top of your vimrc:

execute pathogen#infect()

filetype plugin indent on
syntax on

The two last lines have nothing to do with pathogen but, if you have them in your ~/.vimrc, be sure to put them after the pathogen line. If you don't have those lines, well… add them! What good is Vim without syntax highlighting and filetype detection?

Install a plugin.

We are going to install delimitMate. Once it is installed in ~/.vim/bundle/, you should get:

~/.vim/bundle/delimitMate-master/autoload/...
~/.vim/bundle/delimitMate-master/doc/...
~/.vim/bundle/delimitMate-master/plugin/...
~/.vim/bundle/delimitMate-master/...

Manually:

Unzip delimitMate-master.zip in ~/.vim/bundle/delimitMate-master/.

Gitly, no submodules:

$ cd ~/.vim/bundle
$ git clone https://github.com/Raimondi/delimitMate.git

Gitly, using submodules:

$ cd ~/.vim
$ git submodule init
$ git submodule add https://github.com/Raimondi/delimitMate.git bundle/delimitMate

All methods:

Once you are back in Vim, it is recommended to execute the :Helptags command, provided by Pathogen, to make the plugin's documentation available globally:

:Helptags

Update a plugin.

Manually:

Same as installation process.

Gitly, with or without submodules:

$ cd ~/.vim/bundle/delimitMate-master
$ git pull

Both methods:

Use :Helptags to update the index of the plugin's documentation.

Remove a plugin.

Manually and gitly, no submodules:

Simply remove its directory from ~/.vim/bundle.

Gitly, using submodules:

$ cd ~/.vim
$ git submodule deinit -f bundle/delimitMate
$ git rm -rf bundle/delimitMate