When does the file depending plugin kicks in?

Question

I'm learning to use Vim with vim-latex and I'm wondering when does the plugin actually activates once I open a file.

My intuition tells me that any file with the .tex extension should do it, but if I open a new file in the terminal with

vim test.tex

The empty file is open but the plugin is not activated. Furthermore, if I save, quit and reopen, it is still not activated.

I've noticed it kicks in when I write the \begin{document} ... \end{document} environments and then I save, quit and reopen.

Is this normal behavior? My purpose is to be able to open a new file and then immediately load a .tex template using vim-latex.

Answer 1

Vim has two filetype plugins for tex files. One is plaintex and the other is tex. The latter is more desirable for Latex files but Vim won't know if the file is Latex or PlainTex if you have no content in the file. That's why the plugin, which depends on the filetype autocommand of Tex filetype, is triggered after the file is recognized as a Latex document. So, to answer your question, the behavior is completely normal, even though I have no idea why there is a plaintex filetype and who uses that.

The solutions below are suggested better to worse, i.e. the first solution is best, the second better and the third meh:

• You can put the following in your vimrc to always use tex as the default filetype:

  let g:tex_flavor = 'latex'
  

• You can put the following in your ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/plaintex.vim file:

  set filetype=tex
  

• You can put the following autocmds in your vimrc in order to set the filetype to tex from plaintex:

  augroup filetype_tex
      au!
      autocmd FileType plaintex set filetype=tex
  augroup END