For some Vimmers, their statusline is like the Lightsaber of a Jedi. Each one similar, yet unique — the aesthetic cherry revealing a lurking identity. This notion has led to projects like Powerline, Airline, and Lightline. While all interesting, this tutorial is about doing it the old school way. We’ll be traveling to a metaphorical Dagobah to craft our statusline using the methods of the force — Vim script.
Before we get going, here is a preview of the syntax. The screenshot below is my current statusline, alongside the code used to generate it.
The Basics
As with any exploration into Vim, we need to start from the ground floor — :help statusline.
