How to add NERDTree to your .vimrc

Are you on a Windows or unix-y system?

If you're on a unix-y system you put plugins in ~/.vim/plugin. Here's what my plugin directory looks like:

$ ls ~/.vim/plugin
NERD_tree.vim  scratch.vim  scratchfind.vim

After that it starts working right away. Try running vim like this:

$ vim .

It should open the current directory in the NERD tree view.

If you're on Windows you put plugins here: C:\Program Files\Vim\vim70\plugin

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To get NERDTree to load automatically when you start up vim, run it like this from the command line:

$ vim -c "NERDTree" some_file.txt

You can set an alias for this in your .bashrc:

alias vimt='vim -c "NERDTree" $1'

Now whenever you run vimt (instead of vim) you'll also open up NERDTree on the left side of the window.

You could also add a shortcut key to start NERDTree in your .vimrc this way:

function OpenNERDTree()
  execute ":NERDTree"
endfunction
command -nargs=0 OpenNERDTree :call OpenNERDTree()

nmap <ESC>t :OpenNERDTree<CR>

Now when you hit Esc then t it will pop open NERDTree.

I like to see NERDTree only when I start vim without file arguments, so I added this to my .vimrc:

autocmd VimEnter * if !argc() | NERDTree | endif

Okay, the previous version was a bit terse, but the answer you're looking for is to add the line below into your ~/.vimrc file. It tells Vim that you want to setup a command to run when Vim starts, but since it depends on various plugins to be loaded, you don't want to run it until all initialization is finished:

autocmd VimEnter * NERDTree

If, however, you're annoyed by the fact that the cursor always starts in the NERDTree window, you can add a second autocommand that will move the cursor into the main window:

autocmd VimEnter * NERDTree
autocmd VimEnter * wincmd p