The VimL Primer

Detecting the Current File Type

When we went over the directories that can be used in a Vim plugin, back in ​The Structure of a Vim Plugin​, I mentioned the specialized ftdetect directory. In the average plugin, we probably wouldn’t need to use this directory. Its entire purpose is to hold script files that detect the type of the file we’re editing—and it turns out that one popular way to have the script files do that is to have them use autocommands.

Filetype vs. Global Plugins

There are two categories that Vim plugins tend to fall into. They are global plugins and filetype plugins.

A global plugin is general-purpose. It can apply regardless of the file we’re editing, and it might fill a common need, such as searching a directory using ack ...