I've been lurking on reddit for sometime checking out the sweet developer setups they have posted in some of their customization subreddits. They make me jealous a bit. So I set out to try to customize my own system with some of these things.

The thing I found in common with most of these setups were that the people were using VIM. Ok Check, I've got that installed. Now what? Tmux. Ok, thats pretty easy as well (Thanks homebrew!).

What I really had wanted is Powerline.Its a beautiful statusplugin for Vim that just makes it look Sweet. However I had some trouble getting it installed. I spent a lot of time trying to just get powerline installed. For some reason it wasn't installing into my correct directory and I couldn't find it anywhere once I had compiled it. But then I stumbled on a website that helped me get going. So Kudos to saulict. Here is his site. How to Install Vim and Powerline in osx.

I'm writing this to hopefully help anyone else having issues with installation and for myself in the future. The instructions I'm going to post come mainly from his website there. But this is what worked flawlessly for me.

Install the lastest version of VIM.

You need to make sure you have homebrew installed. after that you can run this command. brew install vim --with-python --with-ruby --with-perl

Install Vundle

This is what ended up working for me. With everything I tried before, I kept running into issues. Vundle is Awesome. Note: The instructions below to install Vundle come directly from their github.

1. $ git clone https://github.com/gmarik/vundle.git ~/.vim/bundle/vundle
2. Configure Bundles (Post this in your ~/.vimrc file.

set nocompatible               " be iMproved
 filetype off                   " required!

 set rtp+=~/.vim/bundle/vundle/
 call vundle#rc()

 " let Vundle manage Vundle
 " required! 
 Bundle 'gmarik/vundle'

 " My Bundles here:
 "
 " original repos on github
 Bundle 'tpope/vim-fugitive'
 Bundle 'Lokaltog/vim-easymotion'
 Bundle 'rstacruz/sparkup', {'rtp': 'vim/'}
 Bundle 'tpope/vim-rails.git'
 " vim-scripts repos
 Bundle 'L9'
 Bundle 'FuzzyFinder'
 " non github repos
 Bundle 'git://git.wincent.com/command-t.git'
 " git repos on your local machine (ie. when working on your own plugin)
 Bundle 'file:///Users/gmarik/path/to/plugin'
 " ...

 filetype plugin indent on     " required!
 "
 " Brief help
 " :BundleList          - list configured bundles
 " :BundleInstall(!)    - install(update) bundles
 " :BundleSearch(!) foo - search(or refresh cache first) for foo
 " :BundleClean(!)      - confirm(or auto-approve) removal of unused bundles
 "
 " see :h vundle for more details or wiki for FAQ
 " NOTE: comments after Bundle command are not allowed...

1. Launch Vim and run :BundleInstall

Configuring Powerline

If everything went well, you should have your powerline showing up in Vim now. I put these settings in my .vimrc I got from saulict. For me, its the little things that count. And I like the way this looked.

syntax on
set background=dark
let g:Powerline_symbols = 'unicode'
set laststatus=2
set encoding=utf-8
set t_Co=256
set fillchars+=stl:\ ,stlnc:\

Fixing Patched Fonts

The last step we need to do is install some patched fonts that will work with Powerline. git clone https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline-fonts.git You can install all these fonts if you wish or just pick and choose which ones you want to use. The one I am currently using is Meslo.

Once you have the fonts installed you need to open up iTerm2. Go to Preferences > Profiles > Text. Then you can select the font. My settings are 12pt Meslo LG L DZ Regular for Powerline. I find that 12pt font works best for me on my 13" screen.