NERDTree seems to be the de facto file explorer for Vim, but it's hard to find a good introduction to its quirks and some basic configurations without duckduckgo'ing tons of blog posts and reverse engineering individual .vimrcs. This post tries to compile all the things I learned over several hours into an easily digestable summary.
Show Hidden Files
By default, NERDTree hides dot files. For many developers, this is a frustrating default setting that makes it hard to open and edit .gitignore, .travis.yml, and other really important dotfiles. I couldn't find any documentation about how to change the default in my .vimrc, but here's how to do it:
" .vimrc
let NERDTreeShowHidden=1
Filter Out Custom Files and Directories
The syntax is a little weird, so let's look at an example and then break it down:
" .vimrc
let NERDTreeIgnore=['.git$[[dir]]', '.swp']
- Use the variable
NERDTreeIgnoreto configure the filters - Specify an array of patterns to ignore, using
[and]to bookend the list of comma delimited patterns - Files should be specified as string literals (ex:
'.swp') - Directories should be specified as string literals with the magic suffix
$[[dir]]
I'm guessing that glob patterns are also supported, but I haven't experimented with that yet. Open a PR on this article if you have experience with globs!
Update NERDTree's View of Files
TL;DR
- Click on the NERDTree buffer
- Press
Rorr
Full story For performance reasons, NERDTree caches its view of the file system. This means that if you add, rename, move, or delete a file outside NERDTree, you won't be able to see that change reflected.
Adding, Renaming, Moving, and Deleting Files and Directories
- Click on the NERDTree buffer
- Press
m - Pick the option you want
Conclusion
This is all super basic NERDTree stuff, but I couldn't find a good summary elsewhere. What are you advanced tricks to get the most of NERDTree?