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Install Command-T on Windows

Command-T is one of the most powerful Vim's plugins but install it on a Windows box could be a bit of pain in the ass little frustrating ;).
Here I'll post a step by step guide on how to install this plugin from scratch.

First of all, you will need a copy of Vim compiled with ruby support (+ruby) which ins't the case of the default version that you get from the official site.
While you can compile Vim by yourself, you can also download an already compiled version from here http://wyw.dcweb.cn/download.asp?path=vim&file=gvim74.zip (ruby 2.0)
Once your download completes, extract vim.exe and gvim.exe and copy them into “C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\Vim74”

Now, got to your command prompt and run: vim –version. Among a bunch of stuff, you should see +ruby.

In addition to the modified version of Vim, you will also have to install ruby 2.0. If you haven't already, go to http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/ and download de x86 version of Ruby 2.0 and the according RubyDevKit. (It' s super important that you get the x86 version. I shoot myself on the foot a bunch of times with the x64 version).

Just to make sure we are good so far, open vim and (at the Vim command promp) type :ruby puts RUBY_VERSION. If everything went OK, you should see: 2.0.0.

At this point we are good to go. We have Vim compiled with ruby support and the right version of Ruby installed on our system.

To install the actual plugin, I recommend to use pathogen (https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen ) but you can get it by other means too. Using this package manager, you just need to clone the plugin's github repo into /vimfiles/bundle. In the case of Command-T, you will also have to build a native extension. To do so, go to Command-T's home directory and run: rake make.

If at this point you got an error, you probably forgot to init/install RubyDevKit. Just go to DevKit's installation path, and run: dk init, dk install. And then run: devkitvars.bat (this will enhance your path so you can build native extensions). Now back to command-t's installation path and again, run: rake make. This time it should succeed;

Open a fresh instance of the terminal, then open vim and at the vim's command prompt type Command-T and hit [Enter]. If everything went ok, you should see a list of files/directories that you can filter and navigate right from the editor. (By default, command-t it's bound to the <leader> + t shortcut).

Install this plugin on Windows systems is a bit of a hassle, but it well worth it. I can't imagine myself using Vim without Command-T.



If you have any trouble installing Command-T, feel free to contact me, I'll try to help.

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