Does powerline and Vim work in Windows using Cmder shell terminal?

Question

I am using the cmder under Windows 7.

I am using Vim version 7.4; I'm using the airline plugin and I installed the powerline font/patch.

I followed the instruction and also added the following to my vimrc:

if !exists('g:airline_symbols')
    let g:airline_symbols = {}
endif

" unicode symbols
let g:airline_left_sep = '»'
let g:airline_left_sep = '▶'
let g:airline_right_sep = '«'
let g:airline_right_sep = '◀'
let g:airline_symbols.linenr = '␊'
let g:airline_symbols.linenr = '␤'
let g:airline_symbols.linenr = '¶'
let g:airline_symbols.branch = '⎇'
let g:airline_symbols.paste = 'ρ'
let g:airline_symbols.paste = 'Þ'
let g:airline_symbols.paste = '∥'
let g:airline_symbols.whitespace = 'Ξ'

" airline symbols
let g:airline_left_sep = ''
let g:airline_left_alt_sep = ''
let g:airline_right_sep = ''
let g:airline_right_alt_sep = ''
let g:airline_symbols.branch = ''
let g:airline_symbols.readonly = ''
let g:airline_symbols.linenr = ''

But still the status bar shows funny characters. Does the airline for Vim even work on Windows (NOT using the cygwin) just using the cmder?

Answer 1

From issue#225 of cmder:

This not a specific problem of cmder, but rather of cmd in general, which does not use UTF-8 by default.

So just run chcp 65001 from cmder terminal to set unicode code page to UTF8.

BUT this way you should run this code every time you are going to use cmder; To automate this:

You can just add a "@chcp 65001 >nul" at the bottom of the vendor/init.bat.

This way unicode will set on cmder initiation.

Answer 2

In cmder setting page Startup -> Environment, add the following setting:

set LANG=en_US.utf8
chcp utf-8

It should solve your problem.