Vire

What is Vire?

Vire is a simple Vim / Neovim installer and vimrc + plugin or package manager.

Vire makes it simple to install and keep Vim or Neovim up to date on Windows.

Install Vim:

vire -i

Install Neovim:

vire -i -n

This will download and install the binary from Github and extract to the HOME directory. The directory will also be added to the user path so that starting [g]vim.exe or nvim[-qt].exe is easy. It will install either the 32-bit or 64-bit version depending on the architecture of Python since a mismatch will prevent Python plugins from working.

Installation on Linux is left to the distro package managers.

Vire also makes it super easy to install your vimrc. The recommended method is to maintain the vimrc as a gist on Github. Here's my vimrc for example. All Vire needs is the gist ID and it is able to keep the local copy up to date. All updates can be made on Github and simply running Vire on each machine will get everything up to date. This strategy makes it simple to keep multiple machines in sync.

vire gistID

Lastly, Vire does what every other plugin manager does - install every plugin defined in the vimrc loaded. One advantage of using Vire is that it does not depend on Git to download plugins and leverages Vim / Neovim's built-in pack method of loading plugins.

Vire only requires Python which is what most modern Vim / Neovim plugins require and made the most sense to build upon.

Installation

First download and install a Python distribution if not already present.

Vire can be installed in multiple ways, easiest being from PyPI:

pip install vire

Or as a regular user:

pip install vire --user

If pip isn't available or preferred, one of the following methods can be used to download:

• Clone the latest source:

  git clone https://github.com/genotrance/vire

• Download the latest source ZIP:

  https://github.com/genotrance/vire/archive/master.zip

Vire along with all dependencies can then be installed to the standard Python location using:

python setup.py install

Or as a regular user:

python setup.py install --user

Installing Vire as a regular user will require adding %APPDATA%\Roaming\Python\PythonVER\Scripts or ~/.local/bin to the path.

Vire can also be used without installation with python vire.py but will require all dependencies to be installed manually.

pip install pygithub requests for Python 3.x

pip install pygithub requests futures pathlib2 for Python 2.x

After installation, Vire can be run on the command line like an executable.

vire -h

Typical Scenario

• Download and install Vire

• Install Vim / Neovim if required

  vire -i [-n]

• Post vimrc to Github gist if not already

• Backup and remove any existing configuration files and directories so that Virc can setup from scratch. NOTE: Vire will not overwrite any existing configuration if detected unless told to with -f. If forced, the existing vimrc will be overwritten and the pack/vire/start directory will get cleaned and repopulated with plugins as specified in the vimrc provided. Any other directories and files will remain in place and might conflict so it is preferred to start with a clean slate.

• If you want to use Vire for all plugins:

  • Edit vimrc to remove all function calls related to plugin managers like Pathogen, Vundle, vim-plug, etc.

  • Comment out all lines pointing to plugins. This will be used by Vire to download and install instead. For example, for Vundle:

    Plugin 'tpope/vim-fugitive' => " Plugin 'tpope/vim-fugitive'

  • Or for vim-plug:

    Plug 'tpope/vim-fugitive' => " Plug 'tpope/vim-fugitive'

  • For other plugins, you will need to add such " Plug 'user/project' manually for each plugin that needs to be installed.

• If you prefer to use your existing plugin manager to download your plugins, you can use Vire to only install the plugin manager and leave the rest of the vimrc as is:

  " Plug 'VundleVim/Vundle.vim' " Plug 'junegunn/vim-plug' " Plug 'Shougo/dein.vim'

• Run Vire to download and install the vimrc and plugins:

  vire gistID

• When you need to update, simply run vire and it will check if anything has changed. Running with -i will also check if the app itself has an update.

Configuration

Vire maintains a ~/.vire.json to remember things such as the gist ID, 32-bit mode, Vim or Neovim mode and other details to detect when an update is available.

No manual editing should be required, the command line parameters should be all that's required.

Usage

usage: vire [-h] [-b] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-v] [vimrc]

positional arguments:
  vimrc          Gist ID or path to vimrc file

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -b, --bit32    Force 32-bit install
  -f, --force    Force Vim reinstall
  -i, --install  Install Vim/Neovim
  -n, --neomode  Neovim mode
  -v, --vimmode  Vim mode [default]

Dependencies

Vire only requires Python and the PyGithub module at this time. Setuptools is also required if using setup.py.

Vire is tested on Windows with Python 3.6 using the Miniconda distribution and on Ubuntu Artful with Python 2.7 and 3.6.

Feedback

Vire is definitely a work in progress and any feedback or suggestions are welcome. It is hosted on GitHub with an MIT license so issues, forks and PRs are most appreciated.