Installation instructions are unclear for most people (Discussion)

[JonnyBurger]

Hello everyone!

I feel like the documentation should make it clearer that you need to run source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh after installing if you use zsh.
Many people are running the install script and are then wondering why they get a zsh: command not found: nvm error. In fact, over 10000 people had to consult Stackoverflow to get nvm running including myself, I'd imagine that there are even more people that are not using nvm at all because of this.

Do you agree that we should make it clearer?
If so, what changes should we make specifically? Let's discuss.

Thanks for the really awesome software.
Best,
Jonny

[ljharb]

You don't, typically. It depends on the specific array of profile files that each user has on their system.

I'd love to fix it, but non-interactive profile detection is insanely complex. I'll certainly be happy to accept README PRs like #704, but I'd rather figure out a better way to properly do profile file detection.

Another solution is to modify all profile files, but that seems dangerous because, for example, I have my bashrc set up to be sourced by bash_profile - but perhaps we could get around that by checking for the existence of the nvm function and checking the version, to avoid double-sourcing.

[JonnyBurger]

I see. I was looking for the issue #704, but couldn't find it via search, because the wording was different. I'll continue the discussion there!
Thanks for the response.