Updated on September 1, 2020 in #dev-environment, #vim

Switching from NERDTree to Fern for a Vim Tree View Plugin

In this video we'll go over how I use Fern to view and manipulate files in Vim. It's extremely fast and supports marking multiple files.

A while back I made a video on why I use NERDTree and all of those reasons still apply for Fern too. It’s just Fern happens to be much faster and it has a couple of features that are amazing, like being able to mark multiple files and bulk rename files using a Vim buffer.

This video covers a bunch of common features of Fern and how to install / configure it.

# Demo Video of Using and Configuring Fern

Timestamps

• 0:09 – I mainly switched from NERDTree to Fern because Fern is faster
• 2:22 – Renaming and moving files is very nice with Fern
• 4:25 – Performing bulk renames using a Vim buffer after marking files with Fern
• 6:22 – Taking a look at installing and configuring Fern
• 8:08 – Going over a couple of custom mappings (such as toggling Fern)
• 8:34 – The new-path mapping lets you create a file or directory like NERDTree does
• 10:10 – Toggling hidden files on and off
• 10:16 – Reloading Fern so it’s in sync with your file system
• 10:49 – Marking and unmarking to perform bulk actions
• 10:58 – Using drawer mode to ensure Fern always stays open
• 11:21 – Opening files in specific Vim splits using Fern’s letter label system
• 13:59 – Changing the root node to move it up or down your file system
• 14:25 – Checking out Fern’s help menu and running actions without mappings
• 15:26 – Finding out about Fern from a blog post (yay for the internet)

Reference Links

• https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/i-use-nerdtree-in-vim-but-it-is-usually-not-for-opening-files
• https://github.com/lambdalisue/fern.vim
• https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles/blob/0c8abec8c433f7e7394cc2de4a060f3e8e00beb9/.vimrc#L444-L499
• https://bluz71.github.io/2017/05/21/vim-plugins-i-like.html#fernvim

Are you going to switch to fern or are you already using it? Let me know below.