An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
spf13-vim : Steve Francia's Vim Distribution
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spf13-vim is a distribution of vim plugins and resources for Vim, Gvim and MacVim.
It is a good starting point for anyone intending to use VIM for development running equally well on Windows, Linux, *nix and Mac.
The distribution is completely customisable using a ~/.vimrc.local, ~/.vimrc.bundles.local, and ~/.vimrc.before.local Vim RC files.
Unlike traditional VIM plugin structure, which similar to UNIX throws all files into common directories, making updating or disabling plugins a real mess, spf13-vim 3 uses the Vundle plugin management system to have a well organized vim directory (Similar to mac's app folders). Vundle also ensures that the latest versions of your plugins are installed and makes it easy to keep them up to date.
Great care has been taken to ensure that each plugin plays nicely with others, and optional configuration has been provided for what we believe is the most efficient use.
Lastly (and perhaps, most importantly) It is completely cross platform. It works well on Windows, Linux and OSX without any modifications or additional configurations. If you are using MacVim or Gvim additional features are enabled. So regardless of your environment just clone and run.
Installation
Requirements
To make all the plugins work, specifically neocomplete, you need vim with lua.
Linux, *nix, Mac OSX Installation
The easiest way to install spf13-vim is to use our automatic installer by simply copying and pasting the following line into a terminal. This will install spf13-vim and backup your existing vim configuration. If you are upgrading from a prior version (before 3.0) this is also the recommended installation.
Requires Git 1.7+ and Vim 7.3+
curl https://j.mp/spf13-vim3 -L > spf13-vim.sh && sh spf13-vim.sh
If you have a bash-compatible shell you can run the script directly:
sh <(curl https://j.mp/spf13-vim3 -L)
Installing on Windows
On Windows and *nix Git and Curl are required. Also, if you haven't done so already, you'll need to install Vim.
The quickest option to install all three dependencies (Git, Curl, Vim and spf13-vim) is via Chocolatey NuGet. After installing Chocolatey, execute the following commands on the command prompt:
C:\> choco install spf13-vim
Note: The spf13-vim package will install Vim also!
If you want to install msysgit, Curl and spf13-vim individually, follow the directions below.
Installing dependencies
Install Vim
After the installation of Vim you must add a new directory to your environment variables path to make it work with the script installation of spf13.
Open Vim and write the following command, it will show the installed directory:
:echo $VIMRUNTIME
C:\Program Files (X86)\Vim\vim74
Then you need to add it to your environment variable path. After that try execute vim within command prompt (press Win-R, type cmd, press Enter) and you’ll see the default vim page.
Install msysgit
After installation try running git --version within command prompt (press Win-R, type cmd, press Enter) to make sure all good:
C:\> git --version
git version 1.7.4.msysgit.0
Setup Curl
Instructions blatantly copied from vundle readme
Installing Curl on Windows is easy as Curl is bundled with msysgit!
But before it can be used with Vundle it's required make curl run in command prompt.
The easiest way is to create curl.cmd with this content
@rem Do not use "echo off" to not affect any child calls.
@setlocal
@rem Get the abolute path to the parent directory, which is assumed to be the
@rem Git installation root.
@for /F "delims=" %%I in ("%~dp0..") do @set git_install_root=%%~fI
@set PATH=%git_install_root%\bin;%git_install_root%\mingw\bin;%PATH%
@if not exist "%HOME%" @set HOME=%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%
@if not exist "%HOME%" @set HOME=%USERPROFILE%
@curl.exe %*
And copy it to C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\curl.cmd, assuming msysgit was installed to c:\Program Files\Git
to verify all good, run:
C:\> curl --version
curl 7.21.1 (i686-pc-mingw32) libcurl/7.21.1 OpenSSL/0.9.8k zlib/1.2.3
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: Largefile NTLM SSL SSPI libz
Installing spf13-vim on Windows
The easiest way is to download and run the spf13-vim-windows-install.cmd file. Remember to run this file in Administrator Mode if you want the symlinks to be created successfully.
Updating to the latest version
The simplest (and safest) way to update is to simply rerun the installer. It will completely and non destructively upgrade to the latest version.
curl https://j.mp/spf13-vim3 -L -o - | sh
Alternatively you can manually perform the following steps. If anything has changed with the structure of the configuration you will need to create the appropriate symlinks.
cd $HOME/to/spf13-vim/
git pull
vim +BundleInstall! +BundleClean +q
Fork me on GitHub
I'm always happy to take pull requests from others. A good number of people are already contributors to spf13-vim. Go ahead and fork me.
A highly optimized .vimrc config file
The .vimrc file is suited to programming. It is extremely well organized and folds in sections.
Each section is labeled and each option is commented.
It fixes many of the inconveniences of vanilla vim including
A single config can be used across Windows, Mac and Linux
Eliminates swap and backup files from littering directories, preferring to store in a central location.
Fixes common typos like :W, :Q, etc
Setup a solid set of settings for Formatting (change to meet your needs)
Setup the interface to take advantage of vim's features including
omnicomplete
line numbers
syntax highlighting
A better ruler & status line
& more
Configuring included plugins
Customization
Create ~/.vimr
Read the full README on GitHub