********
Overview
********

Requirements
============

Powerline requires Python 3.3 or Python 2.7 to work.

Powerline uses several special glyphs to get the arrow effect and some 
custom symbols for developers. This requires that you either have the symbol 
font or a patched font on your system (details in installation 
instructions).

Vim plugin requirements
-----------------------

The vim plugin requires a vim version with Python support compiled in.  You 
can check if your vim supports Python by running ``vim --version | grep 
+python``.

If your vim version doesn't have support for Python, you'll have to compile 
it with the ``--enable-pythoninterp`` flag (``--enable-python3interp`` if 
you want Python 3 support instead). Note that this also requires the related 
Python headers to be installed on your system. Please consult your 
distribution's documentation for details on how to compile and install 
packages.

Vim version 7.3.661 or newer is recommended for performance reasons.

Optional dependencies
---------------------

The following Python packages are not required by all segments, but 
recommended for optimal performance and extra features:

* ``pygit2``
* ``mercurial``
* ``psutil``

Installation
============

* :ref:`installation-linux`
* :ref:`installation-osx`

Usage
=====

Vim statusline
--------------

Add the following line to your :file:`vimrc`:

.. code-block:: vim

   python from powerline.bindings.vim import source_plugin; source_plugin()

If you want to enable Python 3 support, substitute the ``python`` command 
above with ``python3``. Note that this is somewhat experimental as some 
segments don't have support for Python 3 yet.

If Powerline is installed somewhere other than Python's site-packages 
directories you'll either have to use a plugin manager like Vundle, or 
source the vim plugin file with an absolute path to the plugin location.

Add the following line to your :file:`vimrc`, where ``{path}`` is the path 
to the main Powerline project directory:

.. code-block:: vim

   source {path}/powerline/bindings/vim/plugin/source_plugin.vim

Shell prompts
-------------

Bash prompt
^^^^^^^^^^^

Add the following line to your :file:`bashrc`, where ``{path}`` is the 
absolute path to your Powerline installation directory:

.. code-block:: bash

   . {path}/powerline/bindings/bash/powerline.sh

Zsh prompt
^^^^^^^^^^

Add the following line to your :file:`zshrc`, where ``{path}`` is the 
absolute path to your Powerline installation directory:

.. code-block:: bash

   . {path}/powerline/bindings/zsh/powerline.zsh

Tmux statusline
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Add the following line to your :file:`tmux.conf`, where ``{path}`` is the 
absolute path to your Powerline installation directory::

   source '{path}/powerline/bindings/tmux/powerline.conf'