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I'm just getting started with Vim. It's a fun experience, but I've found it to be kind of overwhelming. I'm trying to get this plugin installed, vim-airline, but I'm having a lot of trouble. The Installation section on the Github page simply states:

copy all of the files into your ~/.vim directory

Presumably, this means download the .zip, extract it, and copy all of those files into ~/.vim/. I did this, but Vim just starts up like normal, and running :help airline just gives:

Sorry, no help for airline

I assume that this means it isn't getting installed. Also, the statusbar remains the same. I'm new to Vim and would really like to get this working. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I also tried putting the files into /usr/share/vim/vim73/. No dice.

EDIT 2: I ran :helptags ~/.vim/doc and now the help-page displays when I type :help airline, but I'm still not getting the plugin itself (the status bar). Vim looks the same, but it can now display the help page.

MunkyCheez
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    Please accept answer to the one that points out that `Add set laststatus=2 to your vimrc.` needs to be set. – matsko Feb 02 '14 at 07:14

8 Answers8

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Check the project's FAQ.

vim-airline doesn't appear until I create a new split

Add set laststatus=2 to your vimrc.

Inside vim, do :h laststatus to understand why this is needed. If you want to know in the future if a plugin is being "loaded" or not, check :scriptnames.

GmonC
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I installed airline using install instructions from https://github.com/bling/vim-airline

They recommended several package managers - I picked the first one:

Pathogen

git clone https://github.com/bling/vim-airline ~/.vim/bundle/vim-airline

I got :help airline to work with this command:

:helptags ~/.vim/bundle/vim-airline/doc

Like you, now the help-page displays when I type :help airline.

joshua paul
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When you download the latest version of vim-airline as .zip and unzip it to a temporary directory, you get a vim-airline-master directory in the temp directory. Inside vim-airline-master you'll find autoload, doc and plugin directories. You should either

  • copy these three directories to your ~/.vim/ if they don't yet exist (don't overwrite existing directories with same names!) or
  • copy the contents of the aforementioned three directories to existing directories under ~/.vim/

However, as a side note, I strongly suggest looking into Pathogen as I've found it the most trouble-free way to play with Vim plugins.

Jawa
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  • Yes, I tried copying the three directories, `autoload`, `doc`, and `plugin` into `~/.vim/` using `cp -r`. Don't worry, `cp -r` will not overwrite existing directories -- it will simply "combine" them. In fact, I didn't even have a `~/.vim/` directory before I tried this. As for Pathogen, I couldn't get that installed either! It seems whatever plugin I try to install is ignored. Never used Vim before, so I'm not really sure what to do... – MunkyCheez Aug 22 '13 at 02:10
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    pathogen is trivial to install, all you need to do is follow instructions from pathogen.vim: copy that file to ~/.vim/autoload and add `call pathogen#infect()` to ~/.vimrc. Then all plugins will be subdirectories of ~/.vim/bundle. Do you have a .vimrc file? – AnonymousLurker Aug 30 '13 at 14:06
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Those manual installation instructions assume a lot -- I would say they're just wrong. The plugin files should actually be copied into various subdirectories of your ~/.vim directory.

I downloaded the zip file from its Vim scripts page and took a look.

The doc/airline.txt file goes into your ~/.vim/doc subdirectory. The plugin/airline.vim file goes into your ~/.vim/plugin subdirectory. The autoload/airline.vim file goes into your ~/.vim/autoload directory as does the autoload/airline directory and all its contents.

This is one of those more complicated plugins that should probably be installed using a plugin manager, but I wouldn't worry about that until you get a little more experience with Vim.

Jawa
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garyjohn
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  • Thanks for the reply; however, this is how I already have things set up. The directories that I downloaded from the Airline site -- `doc`, `autoload`, and `plugin` (and the files they contain) have been merged with the respective directories within `~/.vim/`. – MunkyCheez Aug 27 '13 at 02:27
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I was able to install vim-airline for gvim on Windows platform. But you should be able to follow the same process for linux based OS as well and install it without any problem.

NOTE: This installation procedure is manual.

Do the following steps to install vim-airline:

  1. Click on download zip (https://github.com/bling/vim-airline) and unzip it.

  2. For Windows Users:

    Copy all the contents in vim-airline-master and paste it into $HOME\vimfiles folder. If vimfiles folder is not present then create a new folder named vimfiles in your home folder.

    you can find your home folder by running the command :echo $HOME in vim.

    For Linux Users:

    Copy all the contents in vim-airline-master and paste it into $HOME/.vim directory using command cp -r.

  3. Now Open your .vimrc file by running the command :edit $HOME/.vimrc. Add the following line into your .vimrc file.

    set laststatus=2

    Reason: The default setting of 'laststatus' is for the statusline to not appear until a split is created. If you want it to appear all the time, add the following to your vimrc: set laststatus=2

    For more details run the command :help laststatus in vim.

  4. Finally To add help for vim-airline run the following command in vim.

    For Windows Users:

    :helptags $HOME\vimfiles\doc

    For Linux User:

    :helptags $HOME/.vim/doc

  5. Run :help airline in vim for more help and configurations.

    Enjoy the colorful line!!

Community
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Prashant Bhargava
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I believe the files were not copied in the right place.

Under .vim directory, plugin, doc and autoload directories should go. I suspect vim-airline-master directory went under .vim directory and that is why the plugin is not getting set up.

Jawa
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jaychris
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Even once you have a plugin properly installed, you may need to do this to make its help file accessible:

:helptags ~/.vim/doc

After that, running ":help airline" should work and it should tell you how to properly set it up for use in your Vim environment.

Heptite
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  • Okay, cool. I'm on my Mac now (OS X 10.4.11) and I tried the install again, and ran this `:helptags ~/.vim/doc` command, which **did** get the help screen for airline to display! :) However, I don't get the plugin itself -- the status bar. Do I have to "activate" it or something? – MunkyCheez Aug 22 '13 at 02:17
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    It should activate automatically everything that is placed in `autoload` directory. – Jawa Aug 22 '13 at 05:45
  • But... it's not? – MunkyCheez Aug 23 '13 at 02:17
  • MunkyCheez: Do any of AirLine's scripts show up in the output of `:scriptnames`? – Heptite Aug 23 '13 at 03:18
  • Yes, they do. Here's the output of `:scriptnames`: http://pastebin.com/JXuGFedu – MunkyCheez Aug 27 '13 at 02:16
  • Then they _are_ being sourced, and it comes down to proper usage. Does the help file tell you how to run it? – Heptite Aug 27 '13 at 03:13
  • Great, I read some of the help file and now I've got it running. Thanks for your help! – MunkyCheez Aug 28 '13 at 01:28
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Do yourself a favor and install a plugin manager like pathogen.

It makes handling plugins a lot easier.

Once you have pathogen set up, installing airline is simple. If you have git:

git clone https://github.com/bling/vim-airline ~/.vim/bundle/vim-airline

Without git you have to download the zipfile vim-airline-master.zip. Then:

cd ~/.vim/bundle
unzip ~/vim-airline-master.zip
mv vim-airline-master vim-airline
Roland Smith
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  • As much as I'd like to simplify things and (eventually) get Pathogen set up, I was unsuccessful in my endeavors of doing so. I'd rather work on one issue at a time, if you know what I mean. I'll work on Pathogen again once I can get Airline installed. – MunkyCheez Aug 27 '13 at 02:23
  • I fully inderstand, but with all due respect I suggest that getting pathogen to work should be the first priority because it will make subequent plugins much easier. You can find the install instructions on [pathogen's github](https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen). The only detail missing is that `execute pathogen#infect()` should be the _first_ command in your `~/.vimrc`. – Roland Smith Aug 27 '13 at 17:17