gvim pathogen issues

Question

I downloaded pathogen.vim from github and put it in "autoload" directory under ~/.vim. However now when I fire up gvim, and do :helptags, it says "Argument required". The contents of my ~/.vimrc file are:

call pathogen#runtime_append_all_bundles()
call pathogen#helptags()

What am I missing?

Thanks.

Andy

PS: I am doing this so that I can install Nerdtree

--- EDIT 1 ---

Based on what I have seen so far, the pathogen.vim plugin from github did not work for me, so I had to download it from vim.org, and it worked. However now when I do "unzip nerd_tree -d ~/.vim/bundle" and then start up gvim, I can still not find nerdtree.

-----End ---------

Answer 1

According to the pathogen README on github site, you should use :Helptags instead of :helptags. With :Helptags command executed, pathogen should generate all the documentations under directory ~/.vim/bundle now.

Answer 2

helptags is a vim command which has nothing to do with pathogen. The helptags command in vim takes a directory as an argument where it will process .txt files and generate the tags file.

To tell if pathogen is loading correctly you should be able to attempt to :call pathogen#helptags(). If running that manually does not fail, then pathogen is loaded (this is actually unnecessary if you are not getting an error when you start vim because your .vimrc is already running these commands).

The next step for you to complete is to read the documentation provided here on how to install a plugin as a bundle. To summarize:

• Make a directory called ~/.vim/bundle
• Unzip/clone/copy files from an upstream source into ~/.vim/bundle/plugin-name/. This may contain many files and directories (ftplugin, autoload, doc, etc.).
• Fire up vim and test that the functionality provided by plugin-name is available. If not, check that you have completed the above steps correctly.

If you're having problems with pathogen, just remember installing a bundle is not all that different than installing a plugin the normal way. The advantage is you get to keep all files and folders related to that specific plugin in their own directory. This allows you to manage each plugin individually and be confident you are only touching files related to that plugin.