# HG changeset patch
# User Ludovic Chabant <ludovic@chabant.com>
# Date 1405892343 25200
# Node ID ec87439fc784f110b50a735e3108f73a19a23ff3
# Parent  12f4f50f4d3af91f43bccc72bf0030c38d10bc29
Add README file.

diff -r 12f4f50f4d3a -r ec87439fc784 README.md
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/README.md	Sun Jul 20 14:39:03 2014 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+
+# Autotags
+
+Autotags is a plugin that takes care of the much needed management of tags
+files in Vim. It will (re)generate tag files as you work while staying
+completely out of your way. It will even do its best to keep those tag files
+out of your way too. It has no dependencies and just works.
+
+## How?
+
+Install Autotags like any other Vim plugin. I recommend something like
+[Pathogen][], so you can go:
+
+    cd ~/.vim/bundle
+    hg clone https://bitbucket.org/ludovicchabant/vim-autotags
+
+Then you only need to do a `:call pathogen#helptags()` to generate the
+documentation tags (how ironic, eh?) and you can access Autotag's help pages
+with `help autotags`.
+
+
+## What?
+
+In order to generate tag files, Autotags will have to figure out what's in
+your project. To do this, it will locate well-known project root markers like
+SCM folders (`.git`, `.hg`, etc.), any custom tags you define (with
+`autotags_project_root`), and even things you may have defined already with
+other plugins, like [CtrlP][].
+
+If the current file you're editing is found to be in such a project, Autotags
+will make sure the tag file for that project is up to date. Then, as you work
+in files in that project, it will partially re-generate the tag file. Every
+time you save, it will silently, in the background, update the tags for that
+file.
+
+Usually, ctags can only append tags to an existing tag file, so Autotags
+removes the tags for the current file first, to make sure the tag file is
+always consistent with the source code.
+
+Also, Autotags is clever enough to not stumble upon itself by triggering
+multiple ctags processes if you save files to fast, or your project is really
+big.
+
+
+## Why?
+
+There are some similar Vim plugins out there ("vim-tags", "vim-autotag",
+"vim-automatic-ctags", etc.). They all fail on one or more of the requirements
+I set for myself with Autotags:
+
+* No other dependency than running Vim: no Python, Ruby, or whatever.
+* Cross-platform: should work on at least Mac and Windows.
+* Incremental tags generation: don't re-generate the whole project all the
+  time. This may be fine for small projects, but it doesn't scale.
+* External process management: if the ctags process is taking a long time,
+  don't run another one because I saved the file again.
+* Keep the tag file consistent: don't just append the current file's tags to
+  the tag file, otherwise you will still "see" tags for deleted or renamed
+  classes and functions.
+* Automatically create the tag file: you open something from a freshly forked
+  project, it should start indexing it automatically, just in Sublime Text or
+  Visual Studio or any other IDE.
+
+I hope Autotags will bring you as much closure as me regarding tag files. I know
+I don't want to think about it, and probably neither do you.
+
+
+[ctrlp]: https://github.com/kien/ctrlp.vim
+