VIM powerline only displaying when plugin like NERDtree active

Question

Has anyone run into an issue where powerline does not display when in "standard" mode?

If I run:

$ vim ~/.vimrc

I see the following:

"~/.vimrc" 37L, 952C

But if I open something like NERDTree, CtrP, or Sytnatstic I am able to see Powerline as it is expected, as soon as I close either one of the plugins powerline goes away.

Is this the expected behaviour?

Here is my .vimrc if anyone is interested.

https://gist.github.com/helmutgranda/a8347b5e5f0afe293f11

Answer 1

You need to have

set laststatus=2

in your vimrc. This will cause the status line to always show up. Normally it is hidden when you only have no splits.