A Taste of Plugins

Vim is powerful on its own, but plugins lift productivity even higher. In this lesson we install a plugin manager and try three plugins that come up in real work.

Working Code

First, install the plugin manager vim-plug. One line in the terminal does it:

curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

Once installed, add a plugin block to ~/.vimrc:

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')

Plug 'tpope/vim-surround'
Plug 'tpope/vim-commentary'
Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }
Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'

call plug#end()

Open Vim and run :PlugInstall — the plugins download automatically.

Try It Yourself

vim-surround — the wrapping master

Swap, delete, or add quotes, brackets, and tags with ease:

" change double quotes to single quotes
cs"'          →  "hello" → 'hello'

" remove surrounding characters
ds"           →  "hello" → hello

" wrap a word in double quotes
ysiw"         →  hello → "hello"

" wrap a Visual selection in parentheses
S)            →  hello → (hello)

Open any file and practice cs"', ds", and ysiw".

vim-commentary — toggle comments

" toggle the current line's comment
gcc

" toggle comments on 3 lines
3gcc

" comment by motion (current paragraph)
gcap

" comment a Visual selection
gc

The comment style adapts to the file type. .js uses //, .py uses #.

fzf.vim — fuzzy finder

Find files and contents across the project in a flash:

" search by filename
:Files

" search open buffers
:Buffers

" search file content (requires ripgrep)
:Rg search_term

Add shortcuts to ~/.vimrc for convenience:

nnoremap <leader>f :Files<CR>
nnoremap <leader>b :Buffers<CR>
nnoremap <leader>r :Rg<CR>

"Why?"

Why do you need a plugin manager? Managing plugins manually makes installing, updating, and removing them painful. vim-plug wraps these into one-command operations.

Install only what you need. Too many plugins slow Vim startup and may clash with your key bindings.

Deep Dive