The ftplugin directory is for MNV plugin scripts that are only used for a specific filetype. All files ending in .mnv in this directory and subdirectories will be sourced by MNV when it detects the filetype that matches the name of the file or subdirectory. For example, these are all loaded for the "c" filetype: c.mnv c_extra.mnv c/settings.mnv Note that the "_" in "c_extra.mnv" is required to separate the filetype name from the following arbitrary name. The filetype plugins are only loaded when the ":filetype plugin" command has been used. The default filetype plugin files contain settings that 95% of the users will want to use. They do not contain personal preferences, like the value of 'shiftwidth'. If you want to do additional settings, or overrule the default filetype plugin, you can create your own plugin file. See ":help ftplugin" in MNV.