Install MacVim in Sierra

Question

I have a new laptop with Sierra. I brought my applications from my old mac with Time Machine and most of them are working fine. However, Macvim disappeared. I tried to install it. I tried to re-install it by installing Homebrew and brew installing macvim. The install looks successful, but I still cannot find nor use macvim. I guess this is a matter again of application files no longer being in /usr/ but in Library/, but honestly I am a bit lost as to how to figure out whether this is the problem and how to fix it.

Can you please help me out with this?

How I installed Homebrew:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

How I installed Macvim:

brew install macvim

Answer 1

There is now a cask for MacVim, but it's not the default. The correct command is:

brew install homebrew/cask/macvim

This will install MacVim in the Applications folder, and make it available to Spotlight.

Answer 2

The symbolic soft link solution described by @laylaylom works; but I am having trouble setting MacVim as my default app for some filetype. Then I found this from here:

% mkdir ~/Applications/Emacs.app
% ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/23.2/Emacs.app/Contents ~/Applications/Emacs.app

That solution was for Emacs.app but it can work with MacVim as well:

% mkdir ~/Applications/MacVim.app
% ln -Fs /usr/local/Cellar/macvim/8.1-151/MacVim.app/Contents ~/Applications/MacVim.app

Answer 3

Since linkapps is now deprecated, I've had to manually link .app via

ln -Fs `find /usr/local -name "MacVim.app"` /Applications/MacVim.app

Unfortunately, Spotlight cannot find MacVim this way. Therefore, I've (after opening the app by double-clicking on the icon in Finder's Applications folder) right-clicked on the app's icon on the dock and selected Option -> Keep in Dock.

Answer 4

MacVim is keg-only.

If you run this command after installation:

brew linkapps

you will find MacVim in your Applications folder in finder.