I need help in installing some of the popular plugins in Vim. I just started learning this editor and is very excited to use the popular plugins. I'm using gVim in Windows XP and have extracted the .vim files and copied them to the Program Files folder of Vim.
Inside my "F:\Program Files\Vim" folder, there are exactly two folders the "vim73" and the "vimfiles" folder. I put the .vim files (EasyMotion.vim) into the "plugin" folder inside the "vimfiles" folder.
When I run gVim, the plugins doesn't work, and in my case, the EasyMotion plugin is not working. I typed the "/w" to make the EasyMotion plugin work (as stated on its usage on its github account) and nothing seems to work.
Am I missing out something here? Are there extra commands to put in the vimrc file to recognize those plugins?
Cheers!
Answer
Never touch Program Files. There is a vim setting called 'runtimepath' (see the :help 'rtp') that says where Vim is going to locate the plugins. For each directory in the runtimepath, Vim will source every .vim file found in the plugin subfolder, and lookup for functions containing # in their names in the .vim files of the autoload folder. It will also lookup filetype plugins in the ftplugin folder when 'ft' is set.
Normally you should have %HOMEPATH%\Vim\vimfiles in your runtimepath (:echo &rtp to know). Unzip Easymotion there, NOT in Program Files.
Due to that structure, vim plugins mix up in the same 2-3 folders. However it is possible to install every plugin in its own subfolder if you play with runtimepath. The pathogen plugin is dedicated to that. It makes it possible to have every plugin in its own subfolder, and adds every plugin root folder to the runtimepath. The Readme is self-explanatory.