“VAM” is short name for vim-addon-manager.
This is a quick fork that makes VAM use the https:\\ protocol instead of the git:\\ protocol. Certain particularly xenophobic firewalls (like the one I have to deal with), block one but not the other.
This has been tested to work with zeekay's excellent vim config. To use it inside another application like that, simply have the setup.sh or whatever point at this fork instead of the main repo.
- Declarative: The behaviour of Vim is determined by your .vimrc only. [1]
- Automatic runtimepath handling: install/ update/ use manually installed addons on startup or load them lazily as needed when you feel that way. [3]
- Builtin dependency management. [2]
- Based on a pool of addons which is maintained by the community. This allows warning you if you’re going to install outdated packages. Of course you can opt-out and use your own pool easily.
- Sources from www.vim.org, git, mercurial, subversion, bazaar, darcs, [...]
- Addon name completion in .vim files and :(Update|Activate)Addons commands.
- Short syntax for github repos:
github:name/repo. - Optionally writes update logs.
- Cares about windows users.
- Addon info by name or script id (:AddonInfo).
- Tries to preserve user modifications by using diff/patch tools on unix like environments (for non-version-controlled sources).
- 100 % VimL (is this really that good?..)
[1]: assuming you always use latest versions
[2]: this serves the community by making it easy to reuse other’s code. Implemented by a addon-info.json file and patchinfo database for addons without VAM support.
[3]: Yes — there are some special cases where it does not work correctly because some autocommands don’t get triggered
Pool is made up of
- Plugins found on www.vim.org. List is updated by a cron job.
- Version controlled and non-www.vim.org sources. They are added manually, you can file a pull request if you want to add one.
- File with additional information augmenting sources: it has information with dependencies [4], corrects addon types and contains deprecations.
[4]: Plugin authors should use addon-info file instead. patchinfo.vim is for addons not supporting VAM.
VAM is well supported by at least 2 maintainers. Try github tickets or Vim irc channel on freenode.
set runtimepath+=/path/to/vam
call vam#ActivateAddons([list of addon names])
However the “self install” alternative is recommended, see section 2 of GETTING STARTED
Here you go:
See contact information in GETTING STARTED documentation.
It’ll never have nice install progress bars — because the “progress” is not very well known because addons can be installed at any time — and additionall dependencies may be encountered.
If you want to be able to rollback you have to use git submodules yourself or find a different solution — because VAM also supports other VCS and installing from archives.
Also very famous:
debian’s vim plugin manager The author (Jamessan) is fine with this project sharing the same name.