Are there any tree-like explorers for GVIM?

Question

Is there a kind of explorer for GVIM where I could see a project in a tree structure with its containing files, so I could easily navigate through them?

If there is any other functionality such as projects in tabs at the top, with its own tree showing after switching projects, I would be even happier.

Answer 1

Not exactly, but I use a combination of gui file manager (Thunar), shell script, and Gvim remote control feature to achieve the same thing.

Basically:

$ cat ~/bin/cvim 
#!/bin/sh

if [ $# -gt 0 ] ; then
    exec gvim --servername CVIM --remote-silent "$@"
else
    exec gvim --servername CVIM
fi

The Cvim is a "common vim" that invokes gvim specially.

$ cat $HOME/.local/share/applications/cvim.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=cVim
Comment=Common vim - open in single vim instance.
Exec=cvim %F
Icon=gvim
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=text/*
Categories=Application;Development;

Set the GUI manager to use that App for text files.

Also in ~/.gvimrc:

map <M-Left> :bp<CR>
map <M-Right> :bn<CR>
map <M-Del> :bd<CR>
map ZZ :bd<CR>

And I think that should do it. Then you can just use your regular desktop file browser to look at your tree and select files, which causes a single instance of gvim to open in multiple buffers.

Answer 2

I haven't used it myself, but I've read good things about the project plugin, which allows you to "Organize/Navigate projects of files (like IDE/buffer explorer)".

Answer 3

I have been searching for a plugin like this as well. NERDTree is my best choice for this kind of interaction. It is up to date for 7.3 and very configurable.

Answer 4

You can look into the NERDTree plugin.

Answer 5

I highly recommend VimFiler. It is more mature than NERDTree.