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Comment by baby | Hacker News Reader

How is the plugin management in vim? I use emacs and it’s a pain to setup. You need to modify a config file (.emacs) in order to add plugin lists (melpa). You then browse the list through a shortcut (M-x list-packages) and you only see names, no description or ways to look for something specific. Once you installed your plugins there are no real way to access a manual or learn them. Often you will need to modify config files to make them usable.

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The Emacs package list has a description field on the right, a shortcut for more info (?) and after it's installed you've got C-h m and often info pages (C-h i). What's wrong with that?

Vim has no unified plugin structure, there are several plugin manager packages (often installed via git clone). I personally use vim-plug[i] which is more on the minimal side, but there are others like pathogen or vundle. No real centralized plugin repository like melpa, I don't think one of the plugin managers I've used had some kind of common install-screen. You mostly enter the github address and execute the package update vimscript. I've seen more Emacs info packages than :help docs, but in most cases I'm browsing the githup README.md/.org anyways.

[1]: https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug

I use the default package functionality of Vim 8.x (see :h package).

I create a ".vim\pack\foo\start\" folder and git clone plugins there.

Invoking ":helptags .vim\pack\foo\start\somenewplugin\docs" for a plugin makes the docs available to the :h and :helpgrep commands.

Your comment is totally wrong. Any package that's more than a quick hack has inline documentation in a ;;; Commentary: blog, docstrings for all public variables and functions, and customisation options for setting variables with an interactive interface w/ documentation and accepted values integrated. Bigger packages come with info files. All sorts of help is accessible by a multitude of entry points, most bound to convenient and consistent shortcuts. Package system requires remote repositories just like any other package system, and Melpa is a third party repository, so that's not surprising at all. The GNU Elpa archive is configured by default. And the list-packages interface has package descriptions, and can show package details by a single keystroke. Selecting and installing/removing multiple packages is possible.

If configurability is a burden on you just quit Emacs because that's its biggest point which makes it a very productive tool. And just like a sponge won't clean your tabletop by itself if you don't put soap on it and rub it to the tabletop, Emacs can't do anything for you if you don't learn how to use it and actually use it.

On Emacs, if you hit enter on a package after running (M-x list-packages), there's usually a brief summary and a link to Github. After you install the package, you have lots of commands to access documentation. Here's some of them:

  C-h i: info manuals
  C-h ?: help for help 
  C-h F: help for commands
  C-h v: help for variables
  C-h f: help for functions
  C-h m: help for minor modes

That's a lot of help if you ask me!

If you want to browse packages vim awesome site is wonderful. https://vimawesome.com/

Nearly all vim plugins worth a damn come with documentation that integrates smoothly into vim's help system. That vim plugin developers care enough to write such documentation is a credit to vim's plugin culture.

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