INSTALL

Installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~

On *nix you need:

    A working version of ncursesw built as a shared library (*.so files,
    enabled by the --with-shared switch of ncurses' configure script) and
    an ascii compliant terminal.

    Hint for building on Debian-based systems: ncurses package you need to
    build vifm is called libncursesw5-dev.

    For best user-experience with Vim plugins availability of either perl
    interpreter or vim executable is needed to automatically generate tags.

*nix Installation (Cygwin emulates *nix environment, so follow these steps
when building with Cygwin):

    ./configure
    make
    ("su" if you don't have access to /usr/local/bin)
    make install

    ./configure has the following options (the value in square brackets is
    the default one):

      --disable/[enable]-extended-keys - controls whether to build vifm with
          support of extended keys (like arrows, home, end, etc.).
          If it's disabled, there absence of a delay after pressing escape is
          guaranteed for all curses implementations.

      --disable/[enable]-desktop-files - controls whether vifm will parse
          *.desktop files found on your system to get a list of programs
          associated with mimetype of a file.

      --[disable]/enable-remote-cmds - enable remote command sending
          (insecure)

      --[disable]/enable-developer - enables features of interest to
          developers:
           - debug information
           - debug-friendly optimizations
           - treating compilation warnings as errors

      --without/[with]-gtk - use GTK+ to determine mimetypes if available.

      --without/[with]-libmagic - use libmagic to determine mimetypes if
          available.

      --without/[with]-X11 - use libX11 to get terminal window title before
          changing it to restore it on exit.

      --without/[with]-dyn-X11 - load libX11 dynamically

      --with-curses=[/usr] - path to installation root of curses library

      --with-curses-name=[ncursesw] - name of the curses library

    You can install vifm in your ~/ directory if you prefer.  To do this
    manually copy the vifm, vifmrc-converter and vifm-pause executables
    from the src/ directory to where you want to run them.  Another
    possibility is to pass --prefix argument to the ./configure script,
    with path under the home directory, e.g. --prefix=$HOME/local.  You
    will also need to copy vifm-help.txt and vifmrc files from the data/
    directory to ~/.vifm/.

    After you start vifm for the first time, you can edit the configuration
    file.  It will be at ~/.vifm/vifmrc.  See help for description of other
    files in ~/.vifm directory.

On OS X you need:

    Get and install libscursesw or libncursesw as shared libraries (*.so
    files, enabled by the --with-shared switch of ncurses' configure script).

    Proceed like in *nix Installation section.

    Also you probably want to pass --with-gtk=no argument to ./configure
    script to omit unwanted error message when vifm starts.

On Windows you need:

    Mingw

    The following libraries installed from dev-packages for Mingw (they
    should include DLL's):
     - Pdcurses for Mingw (with applied patches under patches/pdcurses/)
     - Regex for Mingw
     - pthreads for Windows

Cross-compiling for Windows using MXE (http://mxe.cc/):

    Required MXE packages:
     - gcc
     - pdcurses (put patches from patches/pdcurses/ to src/ directory of MXE)
     - libgnurx
     - pthreads

    To build vifm using i686-pc-mingw32 toolchain:
     - add usr/bin/ directory of MXE to the PATH environment variable, e.g.
         PATH="$MXE_ROOT/usr/bin/:$PATH"
     - cd src/
     - make -f Makefile.win CROSS=i686-pc-mingw32-

Windows Installation (using Windows native API, not Cygwin):

    cd src
    (uncomment some lines in Makefile.win below 'config:' if you want)
    make -f Makefile.win

    Copy vifm.exe, vifmrc-converter.exe and win_helper.exe to where you
    want to run them (but they all should be in the same directory).  You will
    also need to copy vifm help files and vifmrc file to %HOME%/.vifm/ or
    %APPDATA%/Vifm/.

    In case you want to be able to create symbolic links, you should set a
    "Run as Administrator" attribute for the win_helper.exe.
    Note: symbolic links are supported on Windows starting from Windows Vista.

    If you use *nix shells copy vifm-pause to some directory that is
    included in the %PATH%.  The better solution is to put it into
    %HOME%/.vifm/scripts or %APPDATA%/Vifm/scripts.

    On Windows you can also use vifm in a portable way (e.g. keep it on a
    removable device).  To do that just put your vifmrc file where vifm.exe
    is and all configuration files will be stored there.

Vim Specific Options:

    vim/ directory referred to below is:
     - {install_prefix}/share/vifm/vim/ on *nix-like systems;
     - data/vim/ on Windows.

    Recommended way of installing Vifm-Vim integration is to point Vim's
    'runtimepath' option to the vim/ directory, like this

        set runtimepath+=/usr/share/vifm/vim/

    in your .vimrc file.  Such setup has an additional benefit of Vifm help
    being not visible unless Vim is started via :help command from Vifm.
    If it's not what you desire, just add vim-doc/ directory in a similar
    manner:

        set runtimepath+=/usr/share/vifm/vim-doc/

    Alternatively, you can install whole vim/ directory into Vim or only some
    parts of it as described below.

    vim/doc/vifm.txt file should go to your ~/.vim/doc directory or the system
    vim/doc directory.  Then launch Vim and give the command

        :helptags ~/.vim/doc

    or

        :helptags path/to/system/vim/doc

    depending on where you installed the vifm.txt file.  Note that you have to
    have write permission to corresponding directory.

    You will also need to set 'vimhelp' option in ~/.vifm/vifmrc as the default
    setting is to use the plain text file.

    If you want to use syntax highlighting and file type plugin for
    vifmrc file and on editing command line command externally, copy
    vim/syntax/vifm.vim, vim/ftdetect/vifm.vim and all files in vim/ftplugin/
    appropriately to either system wide or user syntax/ and ftplugin/
    directories of Vim.  One can also add to .vimrc file commands like, but
    using ftdetect/ directory is a cleaner way to achieve the same:

        autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead vifmrc :set filetype=vifm
        autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead ~/.vifm/colors/* :set filetype=vifm

    or when parsing of mode lines is enabled in Vim, add the following as the
    first or last line to configuration file and color schemes:

        " vim: set filetype=vifm :

    To use vifm.vim plugin install vim/plugin/vifm.vim script to Vim in the same
    way as described above.  The script allows you to use Vifm from Vim to
    select files and open them in different ways (e.g. in splits, tabs).
    Note: you need at least Vim 7.3 to use it.