Autosave and Nerdtree conflicts

Question

I was trying to setup NeoVim to autosave each time a change is made. I used this command, which I wrote in ~/.config/nvim/init.vim:

autocmd TextChanged, TextChangedI * silent write

It works perfectly for what I needed, but I found it to get in conflict with nerdtree, which I set-up with the following:

autocmd StdinReadPre * let s:std_in=1
autocmd VimEnter * if argc() == 0 && !exists("s:std_in") | NERDTree | endif

Basically, it starts nerdtree at Vim start-up whenever I am not editing a specific file.

The error I am encountering is that the autosave command tries to save when I am in Nerdtree as well; for this reason, Vim gives the following error:

Error detected while processing TextChanged Autocommands for "*":

E382: Cannot write, 'buftype' option is set.

Press ENTER or type command to continue

Of course, if I press enter, it disappears, but whenever I press something to navigate in Nerdtree, it shows up again and it is very annoying.

Is there a way to fix this problem, maintaining the autosave?

Answer 1

You can update your autocmd to check whether the buffer is of a type that can accept the :write command.

For example:

autocmd TextChanged,TextChangedI *
    \ if &buftype ==# '' || &buftype == 'acwrite' |
    \     silent write |
    \ endif

See :help 'buftype' to see the types of buffer and particularly the ones you might want to :write.