Awesome

Projectroot

There already are a ton of plugins (such as CtrlP) that try to guess what the main project folder is of a file that you're working on, but this plugin allows to easily re-use that functionality in your own custom mappings or scripts.

Features

Works out-of-the-box on most projects by detecting folders such as .git.
Very customizeable.
Easy to use in mappings and your own scripts, just use :ProjectRootCD or call ProjectRootGuess() to get the project root of the current file.
Can be combined easily with existing plugins. (see Examples)
Tries to be as lightweight as possible. For example, it only searches for a project root when a method such as ProjectRootGuess is used and does not automatically set any mappings or autocommands.

Installation

If you're using pathogen.vim execute:

cd ~/.vim/bundle
git clone git://github.com/dbakker/vim-projectroot.git

That's all!

However, to avoid having to type in long commands all the time, you will probably want to set up some mappings. For this, check out the examples below or consult the documentation.

Examples

Change current working directory to project root

Using a mapping:

nnoremap <leader>dp :ProjectRootCD<cr>

Automatically whenever you open a buffer:

function! <SID>AutoProjectRootCD()
  try
    if &ft != 'help'
      ProjectRootCD
    endif
  catch
    " Silently ignore invalid buffers
  endtry
endfunction

autocmd BufEnter * call <SID>AutoProjectRootCD()

Grep

To grep with your project as base directory, you could add something like:

nnoremap <leader>g :ProjectRootExe grep<space>

Open file relative to the root

To start the command line with :e /my/path/to/project/, you could use this:

nnoremap <expr> <leader>ep ':edit '.projectroot#guess().'/'

NERDTree

If you would like NERDTree to always open at the root of your project, try adding something like this to your vim config:

nnoremap <silent> <leader>dt :ProjectRootExe NERDTreeFind<cr>

Switching between files

These mappings might be handy to navigate between your project files.

nnoremap <silent> [p :ProjectBufPrev<cr>
nnoremap <silent> ]p :ProjectBufNext<cr>
nnoremap <silent> [P :ProjectBufFirst<cr>
nnoremap <silent> ]P :ProjectBufLast<cr>

To manage multiple projects, you could use something like:

nnoremap <silent> ]v :ProjectBufNext ~/.vim<cr>
nnoremap <silent> [v :ProjectBufPrev ~/.vim<cr>

Or if you had used mF to mark a file in a certain project:

nnoremap <silent> ]f :ProjectBufNext 'F<cr>
nnoremap <silent> [f :ProjectBufPrev 'F<cr>

Check out the documentation for more information about the different commands and settings!

Similar projects

Vim Rooter: Changes the working directory to the project root when you open a file.
vimprj: Allows the execution of project or folder specific scripts.
CtrlP: Has an option to search for files relative to the root directory of your project.