A more useful statusline in vim? [closed]

Question

Edit:-

Note vim-airline is gaining some traction as the new vimscript option as powerline has gone python.

---

Seems powerline is where it is at these days:-

Normal status line

Customised status lines for other plugins (e.g. ctrlp)

Here's mine:

set statusline=
set statusline +=%1*\ %n\ %*            "buffer number
set statusline +=%5*%{&ff}%*            "file format
set statusline +=%3*%y%*                "file type
set statusline +=%4*\ %<%F%*            "full path
set statusline +=%2*%m%*                "modified flag
set statusline +=%1*%=%5l%*             "current line
set statusline +=%2*/%L%*               "total lines
set statusline +=%1*%4v\ %*             "virtual column number
set statusline +=%2*0x%04B\ %*          "character under cursor

And here's the colors I used:

hi User1 guifg=#eea040 guibg=#222222
hi User2 guifg=#dd3333 guibg=#222222
hi User3 guifg=#ff66ff guibg=#222222
hi User4 guifg=#a0ee40 guibg=#222222
hi User5 guifg=#eeee40 guibg=#222222

This is the one I use:

set statusline=
set statusline+=%7*\[%n]                                  "buffernr
set statusline+=%1*\ %<%F\                                "File+path
set statusline+=%2*\ %y\                                  "FileType
set statusline+=%3*\ %{''.(&fenc!=''?&fenc:&enc).''}      "Encoding
set statusline+=%3*\ %{(&bomb?\",BOM\":\"\")}\            "Encoding2
set statusline+=%4*\ %{&ff}\                              "FileFormat (dos/unix..) 
set statusline+=%5*\ %{&spelllang}\%{HighlightSearch()}\  "Spellanguage & Highlight on?
set statusline+=%8*\ %=\ row:%l/%L\ (%03p%%)\             "Rownumber/total (%)
set statusline+=%9*\ col:%03c\                            "Colnr
set statusline+=%0*\ \ %m%r%w\ %P\ \                      "Modified? Readonly? Top/bot.

Highlight on? function:

function! HighlightSearch()
  if &hls
    return 'H'
  else
    return ''
  endif
endfunction

Colors (adapted from ligh2011.vim):

hi User1 guifg=#ffdad8  guibg=#880c0e
hi User2 guifg=#000000  guibg=#F4905C
hi User3 guifg=#292b00  guibg=#f4f597
hi User4 guifg=#112605  guibg=#aefe7B
hi User5 guifg=#051d00  guibg=#7dcc7d
hi User7 guifg=#ffffff  guibg=#880c0e gui=bold
hi User8 guifg=#ffffff  guibg=#5b7fbb
hi User9 guifg=#ffffff  guibg=#810085
hi User0 guifg=#ffffff  guibg=#094afe

What I've found useful is to know which copy/paste buffer (register) is currently active: %{v:register}. Otherwise, my complete status line looks almost exactly like the standard line.

:set statusline=%<%f\ %h%m%r\ %y%=%{v:register}\ %-14.(%l,%c%V%)\ %P

Some times less is more, do you really need to know the percentage through the file you are when coding? What about the type of file?

set statusline=%F%m%r%h%w\ 
set statusline+=%{fugitive#statusline()}\    
set statusline+=[%{strlen(&fenc)?&fenc:&enc}]
set statusline+=\ [line\ %l\/%L]          
set statusline+=%{rvm#statusline()}       

I also prefer minimal color as not to distract from the code.

Taken from: https://github.com/krisleech/vimfiles

Note: rvm#statusline is Ruby specific and fugitive#statusline is git specific.