
Vim Addon Registry
==================

On-Disk Format
--------------

The registry is stored on disk as a single directory directly (i.e. not in any
sub-directory) containing a set of files in YAML [1] format. At the time of
writing the directory containing the Vim addon registry is
/usr/share/vim/registry/.

Each file is a multi-document YAML file (i.e. it can be composed by several
different YAML documents separated by "---" lines). Each YAML document represent
a registry entry, that is the information describing a single addon.

Ideally, the registry directory contains one file per package shipping addons;
with a filename obeying to the convention PACKAGE-NAME.yaml. Hence a single
package can contribute to the registry with multiple entries described in a
single YAML file.

For example, the "vim-scripts" package should ship a single
/usr/share/vim/registry/vim-scripts.yaml file, containing one YAML document per
shipped addon. The first lines of such file can look like the following (two
space of indentation manually added to the present text file):

  addon: alternate
  description: "alternate pairing files (e.g. .c/.h) with short ex-commands"
  basedir: /usr/share/vim-scripts/
  files:
    - plugin/a.vim
    - doc/alternate.txt
  ---
  addon: whatdomain
  description: "query the meaning of a Top Level Domain"
  basedir: /usr/share/vim-scripts/
  files:
    - plugin/whatdomain.vim
  ---

Each registry entry may contain the following fields, to be typeset according to
the YAML specification:

  addon:

    name of the addon (required field)

  description:

    human understandable textual description of the addon (required field)

  type:

    The type of the addon. Currently there are two types of addons.

    Addons with type "legacy" (the default) are old-style addons: each of its
    files (listed in the "files" field) will be symlinked into the target
    installation directory.

    Addons with type "directory" must install to a single directory, and their
    installation will result in a single symlink under $target_dir/vam, which
    will be added to vim's runtimepath. This is the recommended addon type; see
    addon-directory.markdown for details.

    If the "type" field is ommitted, it is assumed "legacy". This is to keep
    backwards compatibility with previous addons.

  files:

    list of the files which compose the addon and are required to be present in
    a component of the Vim runtime path for the addon to be enabled.  Each file
    is specified relative to a component of the Vim runtime path (required
    field for addons of type "legacy".)

  directory:

    for addons of type "directory", this field should indicate the directory in
    which the addon is installed. If ommitted, it is assumed the addon is
    installed to a subdirectory of /usr/share/vim/addons/vam.

  legacy_files:

    for addons that were of type "legacy" and migrated to the type "directory",
    this field must list the files that the addon used to contain. This
    information is used when trying to automatically upgrade the addons
    installed by users from the old format to the new format.

  basedir:

    directory where the files shipped by the addon (i.e. where the symlinks of
    the user/sysadm should point to) reside on the filesystem (optional field,
    default to: /usr/share/vim/addons)

  disabledby:

    vim script command that can be used (usually by adding it to ~/.vimrc) to
    prevent the addon from being used even when it is installed.  The intended
    usage of this field is to "blacklist" an undesired addon whose files are
    available, and hence automatically loaded by Vim, in a component of the
    Vim runtime path.  (optional field)

References
----------

[1] http://www.yaml.org/

Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@debian.org>
-- Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:12:00 +0100 zack
