Sane Vim Plugin Management with Vundle

Sane Vim Plugin Management with Vundle(charlietanksley.net)

56 points by 1336 15 years ago | 15 comments

redacted 15 years ago |

Not arguing with his main points, but updating submodules for pathogen is easier than he says.

To update submodules do (in the "main dir" of the git repo):

   git submodule foreach git pull

ctanksley 15 years ago | |

Post author here. You're dead on about this. I could try to turn this into another reason why git + pathogen is lacking as a plugin management system (you have to know a lot about git!), but that is weak, so a better tack is to just agree.

Question: is there an equally easy way to delete submodules? They're easy as pie to add, and you rightly point out that they are easy to update, but I never figured out an easy way to remove them. I was likely missing something, though.

mattyb 15 years ago | | |

http://chrisjean.com/2009/04/20/git-submodules-adding-using-...

john2x 15 years ago | |

That assumes that all the plugins are installed via Git, right?

redacted 15 years ago | | |

It updates only those plugins that are installed as git submodules yes. Most recent bundles have git repos, but if they don't

    https://github.com/vim-scripts

mirrors all plugins hosted on vim.org as clonable repos.

Adaptive 15 years ago |

I truly prefer to use git-subtree with pathogen.

1. add a repo:

    $ git remote add remote-vim-surround https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround.git

2. git-subtree:

    $ git subtree add --prefix=vim/bundle/vim-surround remote-vim-surround master

3. occasional updates:

    $ git subtree pull --prefix=vim/bundle/vim-surround remote-vim-surround master

The advantage of this method is that I can keep my config directory in git, pull it onto a new machine, and not have to update any submodules. It's just all there.

john2x 15 years ago |

Interesting. I just recently started using Pathogen, and it is a great improvement, but I do agree that updating plugins is still a chore.

How well does Vundle work in Windows? And how does it organize the plugins?

ctanksley 15 years ago | |

The plugin author discusses that here: https://github.com/gmarik/vundle/wiki/Vundle-for-Windows.

rbxbx 15 years ago |

Updating your plugins (when using pathogen) is super-easy if they're stored in git somewhere.

    Dir.glob("#{ENV['HOME']}/.vimbundles/*").each do |d|
      next unless File.directory?(d)
      puts "updating #{d}"
      `cd #{d}; git pull --rebase; cd -`
    end

in ruby, would be easy enough in bash/zsh/python/perl/ as well.

djacobs 15 years ago |

It baffles me how underdeveloped the git-submodule command is. I've never enjoyed that aspect of Vim bundle management, and this looks like a refreshing alternative.

Is submodule-based package management gone for good? I'm going to wait and see.

One thing is clear: the author understands the current Vim ecosystem and knows exactly what pain points still exist. He doesn't diminish how great Pathogen is but has come up with a way to make package management seamless, and for that reason, I'm going to give this a try.

Vitaly 15 years ago |

I'm using pathogen with 'braid' to manage git based bundles.

For example to add the rails plugin I can do:

    braid add git://github.com/tpope/vim-rails.git bundle/vim-rails

then I can do `braid update bundle/vim-rails` to update just that or `braid update` to update all

zzzmarcus 15 years ago |

I've been using (and loving) vim-update-bundles for about 5 months now. I'm not sure how the two compare in terms of features, but the core functionality is the same.

https://github.com/bronson/vim-update-bundles

Fooman 15 years ago |

I switched to using Vundle this morning (before seeing the article). It is an excellent way to manage VIM plugins.

pasbesoin 15 years ago |

...There is a growing consensus about Vim users that Pathogen is the best way to manage scripts. The idea behind pathogen is a fantastic one (to be honest, all of Tim Pope’s scripts are well-thought out and executed; pathogen being no exception)...

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