vim-plug and Nixos?

[peterstorm]

Hello!

I really, really like vim-plug, but at the moment I am installing Nixos on all my systems, and it's a bit of a hassle to get vim-plug to be my prefered plugin manager, because I haven't figured out how to get vim-plug to start, without putting plug.vim in the corret autoload folder, but I have no idea how to do that with Nixos configuration files.

I have a vim.nix file where I override neovim, and ask it to start with vim-plug, but that doesn't seem to work. Anyone have any ideas?

with import <nixpkgs> {};

neovim.override {
  configure = {
    customRC = builtins.readFile "/home/peterstorm/.config/nvim/init.vim";
    packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
      start = [ vim-plug ];
    };
  };
}

[janlazo]

Did you check NixOS/nixpkgs#56338?

[peterstorm]

Did you check NixOS/nixpkgs#56338?

I did skim it, but reading it again, I'm not sure there is anything in there that can help me :(
I just want to autoload vim-plug through my configuration file, without having to manually install vim-plug and then copy it from the store to the autoload dir.

[junegunn]

This is not something we can answer. Please use the issue tracker of NixOS.

FWIW, you can set up your Vim configuration file to automatically download vim-plug.

• https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug/wiki/tips#automatic-installation

[sergei-mironov]

I'm working on my test vim configuration in a Nixos project. vim-plug almost works for me, with the following configuration

  {
   # ...
    plugvim = pkgs.vim_configurable.customize {
      name = "plugvim";

      vimrcConfig.packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
        start = [
          vim-plug 
          # Below is an example of how to modify the plugin before installation.
          # This particular modification doesn't work for me.
          # (vim-plug.overrideAttrs (old: {
          #   postInstall = ''
          #    mkdir -pv $target/autoload
          #     ln -s $target/plug.vim $target/autoload
          #   '';
          # }))
        ];
      };
      vimrcConfig.customRC = ''

        runtime! plug.vim

        call plug#begin($HOME.'/_vim')
        Plug 'https://github.com/grwlf/litrepl.vim' , { 'rtp': 'vim' }
        call plug#end()
      '';
    };
  # ...
  }

The expression defines a barebone Vim with a single vim-plug plugin. It could be built with nix-build -A plugvim and run with ./result/bin/plugvim.

The only problem I see is probably a Vim-related one. The runtime! line of the config returns successfully, but plug#* functions don't appear on this run of the config, so vim issues errors. If I re-type the commands manually or source the config (by looking its absolute path) then everything starts to work.

Do you have an idea what could prevent Vim from loading the plugin and how to fix it?

[tankorsmash]

@sergei-mironov Did you end up figuring out this issue?

[sergei-mironov]

@sergei-mironov Did you end up figuring out this issue?

Hi @tankorsmash . As of vim-plug-2024-05-14 my Nix expression contains a workaround and looks like this.

   vim-plug-test = pkgs.vim_configurable.customize {
      name = "vim-plug-test";

      vimrcConfig.packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
        start = [
          # vim-plug # <--- Does not work as-is, so the below override is required.
          (vim-plug.overrideAttrs (old: {
            postInstall = ''
              mkdir -pv $target/autoload
              ln -s $target/plug.vim $target/autoload
            '';
          }))
        ];
      };
      vimrcConfig.customRC = ''
        call plug#begin($HOME.'/_vim')
        Plug 'https://github.com/sergei-mironov/litrepl.vim' , { 'rtp': 'vim' }
        call plug#end()

        " Setting PATH is a custom requirement of the above Litrepl plugin
        let $PATH="${pkgs.socat}/bin:${litrepl python}/bin:".$PATH
      '';
    };

It defines a vim with Plug installing a single plugin. Note the absence of the runtime! plug.vim command. If I remove the autoload symlink hack I would see errors I described above (which do not appear if I call runtime! plug.vim and then re-type the lines manually). It makes me think there are some runtime path problems in Nix or maybe something I do not know about Plug setup. The hack makes everything work.