Improve productivity by tracking work environment with git - vim

In this post I try to describe my vim configuration procedure and how it is connected with git. The whole concept is based on keeping all the configuration files in a separate directory. These files are connected using symbolic links in places where system or application requires it (eg $HOME/.vimrc -> /home/jdoe/workspace/dotfiles/vimrc). So first let's create local directory for vim:

cd ~/workspace/dotfiles;mkdir vim

1. Pathogen

The first plugin that will be installed is pathogen created by tpope and accessible through github. Pathogen is a vim script to manage all vim plugins with ease. Below line add pathogen as submodule to our workspace repository created in previous post:


git submodule add https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen.git dotfiles/vim/pathogen

Initialise repository and update it:


git submodule init && git submodule update

Create additional directories need to complete pathogen installation, change directory to autoload:


cd dotfiles/vim;mkdir {autoload,bundle};cd autoload

In autoload directory pathogen should be installed, bundle directory is a place for all plugins installed in future. Finally we need to link vim script from pathogen submodule to current directory (dotfiles/vim/autoload):


ln -s ../pathogen/autoload/pathogen.vim .

Directory structure should look like below:


                pietrushnic@eriador:~/workspace/dotfiles$ tree
                .
                └── vim
                    ├── autoload
                    │   └── pathogen.vim -> ../pathogen/autoload/pathogen.vim
                    ├── bundle
                    └── pathogen
                        ├── autoload
                        │   └── pathogen.vim
                        └── README.markdown

At the end of pathogen installation few lines to $HOME/.vimrc should be added. Of course following rules about dotfiles management .vimrc should be created as separate file in ~/workspace/dotfiles and linked to $HOME/.vimrc.

touch vimrc;ln -s $PWD/vimrc $HOME/.vimrc

Add below lines to $HOME/.vimrc

 call pathogen#infect()
call pathogen#runtime_append_all_bundles()
call pathogen#helptags()
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on



2. Fuzzyfinder
This is second plugin without which I cannot work. It speeds up searching though files, directories and tags. Has multiple useful features. RTFM if you want knew them. I will be also added as a git submodule:


git submodule add https://github.com/vim-scripts/FuzzyFinder.git dotfiles/vim/bundle/fuzzyfinder

Additional plugin is needed to correctly install fuzzyfinder:


git submodule add https://github.com/vim-scripts/L9.git dotfiles/vim/bundle/l9

Initialize and update submodules:

git submodule init && git submodule update
Configuration I suggest to configure fuzzyfinder with accordance to example provided in help. 
• Run vim and type :h fuf@en<Enter>. 
• Choose tag fuf-vimrc-example and press Ctrl-]. 
• Mark whole keybindings copy and paste to ~/.vimrc

Right now I think it is enough with vim configuration. Of course I use plenty of other plugins but I don't have to time to describe my them all (maybe in future posts). Don't forget to commit your changes, there could be a lot of them, however, to deal with the distribution of these changes and improve your skills try to use git add -p interface, suggesting after linux code style - each commit should contain separate logical part of the changes, personally I add prefix to my commits (eg . vim, git, etc.) to ease deal with git log.
Notes:

• vim helpfiles generates tags files, which should be ignored by git, so I recommend to create .gitignore in every module with blow content:

.gitignore
tags*

• by default fuzzyfinder operate on unfriendly color palette espessicaly when using it through putty, highlighted pattern could be changed by added below lines to .vimrc (9 = black)

" fuzzy-finder - fix colors
highlight PmenuSel ctermbg=9