Can vim-plug write plugin settings directly to .vimrc?

Question

I am new in using vim-plug. It works fine installing and updating all the plugins configured in .vimrc. But some plugins require some additional settings inside .vimrc to work correctly.

Is there a way to make vim-plug do this automatically too (would be a pain after installing 10 or more plugins at once)?

Answer 1

That's an interesting question! To my knowledge, there is no option to do so.

I think it's better to let the user chose his own mapping to avoid collisions. This is the reason why some plugins use <Plug> for their features (see :help using-<Plug>).

I am happy to see that you are keen on plugins (they are really useful), but I suggest you to not install too many of them (in my humble opinion).

Some plugins duplicate features already existing in vim and I think your knowledge about vim is more portable than any plugins.

Answer 2

In theory it could be possible to hack this together using the do option to Plug. From the plug documentation:

                                                                  *plug-options*
                                                                         *:Plug*

 ------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
 Option                  | Description                                   ~
 ------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
  `branch` / `tag` / `commit`  | Branch/tag/commit of the repository to use
  `rtp`                    | Subdirectory that contains Vim plugin
  `dir`                    | Custom directory for the plugin
  `as`                     | Use different name for the plugin
  `do`                     | Post-update hook (string or funcref)
  `on`                     | On-demand loading: Commands or <Plug>-mappings
  `for`                    | On-demand loading: File types
  `frozen`                 | Do not update unless explicitly specified
 ------------------------+-----------------------------------------------

However, I'm not sure of the use case for this: you would be writing code to write settings, when you may as well write the settings themselves. It may help you to know that even if a certain plugin is not installed, you can still set options with let g:my_plugin_option = "value" with no ill effect. Furthermore, many plugins set g:loaded_plugin_name which you could use inside a conditional, although you'd have to pay attention to your &runtimepath order.