vim-latex installation issues

Question

This is a copy of a question from TeX stackexchange which in hindsight is likely more relevant here.

I have attempted to install vim-latex (Latex-suite) with Pathogen, though I seem to have (at least partially) failed. I followed the instructions given in the answer here.

Though upon following them, help: latex-suite.txt yields the message E149: Sorry, no help for latex-suite.txt (and the same issue occurs with latex-suite, which seems to indicate that latex-suite has not been installed properly. If I use :scriptnames, I get (among other things) the following lines:

 13: ~/.vim/bundle/vim-latex/plugin/SyntaxFolds.vim
 14: ~/.vim/bundle/vim-latex/plugin/filebrowser.vim
 15: ~/.vim/bundle/vim-latex/plugin/imaps.vim
 16: ~/.vim/bundle/vim-latex/plugin/remoteOpen.vim

which seems to indicate that it is at least partially install. The plugin itself does not seem to work. How should I go about fixing this? I am using vim on Ubuntu 20.04.

Answer 1

I'm not sure if this will help you, but I've put together a bunch of resources for how to reporduce the configuration that I've put together for writing LaTeX and Markdown documents in NeoVim. To give you a sense of the plugins which I have configured, see below:

" TEXT SUPPORT

" LaTeX Support
    Plug 'lervag/vimtex'
    Plug 'dense-analysis/ale' " LaTeX Linting

" Markdown
    Plug 'gabrielelana/vim-markdown'
    Plug 'iamcco/markdown-preview.nvim', { 'do': { -> mkdp#util#install() }, 'for': ['markdown', 'vim-plug']}
    

" FILE MANAGEMENT

" Startup Screen
    Plug 'mhinz/vim-startify'
    
" File Explorer
    Plug 'ryanoasis/vim-devicons' "adds icons to coc-explorer
    
" Fuzzy Finder
    Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }
    Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'
    
" Git Integration
    Plug 'mhinz/vim-signify'
    Plug 'airblade/vim-gitgutter'


" AUTOCOMPLETE

" Intellisense
    Plug 'neoclide/coc.nvim', {'branch': 'release'}
    Plug 'Shougo/deoplete.nvim', {'do': ':UpdateRemotePlugins' }
    
" Snippets
    Plug 'SirVer/ultisnips'

" Auto pairs and surround for '(' '[' '{' etc.
    Plug 'jiangmiao/auto-pairs' 
    Plug 'tpope/vim-surround' 
    Plug 'machakann/vim-sandwich' 
    Plug 'tpope/vim-repeat' 
    

" ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS

" Comments
    Plug 'tpope/vim-commentary'

" Quick Movements in Text
    Plug 'unblevable/quick-scope'
    Plug 'easymotion/vim-easymotion'
    
" Terminal
    Plug 'voldikss/vim-floaterm'
    
" Undo tree
    Plug 'mbbill/undotree'
    
" Multiple Cursors
  Plug 'mg979/vim-visual-multi', {'branch': 'master'}

" Browser Support
    Plug 'glacambre/firenvim', { 'do': { _ -> firenvim#install(0) } }


" MAPPINGS

" Look Up Key Bindings
    Plug 'liuchengxu/vim-which-key'


" APPEARANCE

" Themes 
    Plug 'morhetz/gruvbox'  " Source grubox theme
    
" Satus Line
    Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline'
    Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline-themes'

I've created a Cheat Sheet which includes all of the key-bindings which I find useful for writing LaTeX documents with NeoVim. You can find installation instructions on my GitHub repo, along with a number of video series on YouTube which demonstrate the resulting functionality of the configuration, as well as providing an installation guide, a configuration guide for adapting my configuration to your needs, and instructions for using Git to collaborate with others. My aim is to provide an out of the box experience with a complete feature set for academic writing, though admitadly installing Vim is a big of a process even with the guided tour I've tried to create. I hope that this is of some use to you!

Answer 2

If you manually extract a plugin into ~/what/ever/path, and if its doc is missing (or not up to date if you manually update the plugin), then simply type from Vim:

:helptag ~/what/ever/path/doc

IOW, in your exact case it should be:

:helptag ~/.vim/bundle/vim-latex/doc

That's all.

If for some reasons you've extracted the plugin in a root-write restricted area like /usr/share, you'll need to be root to do it, for instance

    $> sudo vim -c ":helptag /usr/share/vim/what/ever/path/doc"

Please note that

• While vim-latex has a documentation, not all plugins does

• Most plugin managers already take care of that if you use them to take care of plugin installation.

• 'runtimepath' managers like pathogen do not. However, reading pathogen README

  Normally to generate documentation, Vim expects you to run :helptags on each directory with documentation (e.g., :helptags ~/.vim/doc). Provided with pathogen.vim is a :Helptags command that does this on every directory in your 'runtimepath'. If you really want to get crazy, you could even invoke Helptags in your vimrc. I don't like to get crazy.

  A solution was already given, but visibly not the minimal one I've just described.

  Note also that pathogen's author recommends using vim8 package feature as it mostly overlaps pathogen intended usage. I haven't checked though if vim packages have a simple way to update plugin documentation as I'm still using a plugin manager (that install plugins and manage 'runtimepath')