You could see all the codes using in this post in this repository.
When you try to use Vim as something more than a simple text editor, you will need to add third-party packages to add features to Vim. For this, exist packer, a package manager that is preferred way if you are using NeoVim.
If you read the basic use guide of this package manager, the normal way to install and configure your packages is
pulling all in a single file called plugins.lua.
This is enough in the firsts intend to use Vim, but if you have time using Vim you finish adding more and more packages. Eventually, you will have a plugins file with hundreds of lines and losing the control of yours package’s configurations.
For this case, exists a different approach, grouping packages configurations in different files.
plugins.lua
One way to call the content of other files, is using the require built-in function of lua.
If you try to use the require function without change something more, you will have issues. Some configurations won’t be
read, directed errors trying to compile the lua code, etc. The plugins.lua file in terms to have a modular use, need
to have a different init way:
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local packer = require("packer")
packer.init()
packer.reset()
local use = packer.use
require('package_configuration.lua')
require('package2_configuration.lua')
...
use 'others/plugins'
use 'others/plugins2'
...
In this case, we won’t have problems with write configurations in other files, only we need to follow the next structure in the other files:
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local packer = require 'packer'
local use = packer.use
-- Plugins
use {
'goolord/alpha-nvim',
requires = { 'kyazdani42/nvim-web-devicons' },
}
-- Configurations
require'alpha'.setup(require'alpha.themes.startify'.config)
As you can see, we have the installation and configuration of new package out of the plugins file, so we can to group different packages by any aspect as you preferred and have a better scalability and congruence.
We have a big problem yet
Now we have a better solution for our configuration file structure, but we need to write for each new file of configuration a new require function with the file name in the plugins file. That don’t sound great!
To avoid this, we could write a custom function that read all the files into a folder:
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local RequireFolder = {}
function RequireFolder.set(path)
print(path)
local pfile = io.popen('ls -a ~/.config/nvim/lua/' .. path)
local i = 0
for filename in pfile:lines() do
if i > 1 then require(path .. '/' .. filename:sub(1, -5)) end
i = i + 1
end
pfile:close()
end
return RequireFolder
With this helper function, we can re-write our plugins file as:
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local packer = require('packer')
packer.init()
packer.reset()
local use = packer.use
RequireFolder = require('helpers/require_folder')
RequireFolder.set('config')
use 'others/plugins'
...
And that is all, now we have a configuration file structure with better scalability, and we gain the control again. Now it is time to keep adding more packages!
Folder Structure
The final folder structure with this approach is the follow:
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.
├── README.md
├── ftplugin
│ └── python.lua
├── init.lua
├── lua
│ ├── config
│ │ ├── alpha.lua
│ │ ├── autopairs.lua
│ │ ├── comment.lua
│ │ ├── format.lua
│ │ ├── git.lua
│ │ ├── lsp.lua
│ │ ├── luahop.lua
│ │ ├── lualine.lua
│ │ ├── python.lua
│ │ ├── refactoring.lua
│ │ ├── scroll.lua
│ │ ├── telescope.lua
│ │ ├── terminal.lua
│ │ ├── theme.lua
│ │ ├── tree.lua
│ │ └── treesitter.lua
│ ├── helpers
│ │ └── require_folder.lua
│ └── plugins.lua
└── plugin
└── packer_compiled.lua
