vim-airline is a lightweight status and tab line plugin for Vim that displays editor state and file information in a customizable bar at the bottom of each window.
The plugin solves the problem of presenting essential editor information—mode, file status, version control branch, encoding, position, and diagnostics from external tools—in a visually organized and themeable interface. It works by dividing the statusline into labeled sections that display different categories of information, with each section colorable based on conditions like the current editing mode or whether the file has been modified. The core is intentionally minimal and extensible, designed to integrate with numerous other Vim plugins including fugitive, NERDTree, syntastic, and vim-gitgutter without requiring those plugins to be installed.
The tool suits developers who want a polished, informative statusline without performance overhead. It loads in under a millisecond and supports Vim back to version 7.2, making it compatible with a wide range of setups. The plugin works with both regular fonts and Unicode or Powerline symbols, allowing users to match their aesthetic preferences. External theme repositories provide color schemes for popular palettes like Solarized, Tomorrow, and Molokai. Anyone choosing this tool should know that it follows a stable master branch policy where new features undergo regression testing before merging, and that configuration is optional—the plugin displays useful information by default without requiring setup.
The maintainers typically respond to new issues and pull requests within a day.
