Dotfiles

My OS X dotfiles.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Git (1.7+)
• Vim (7.3+) - I use MacVim installed with Homebrew

Installation

This will create symlinks for most of the files and the vim directory. The .gitconfig file is copied to the HOME directory so that any private git configuration taking place in ~/.extra is not accidentally committed.

git clone git://github.com/necolas/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles
cd ~/.dotfiles
bash bootstrap.sh

N.B. This will overwrite any existing dotfiles in your HOME and .vim directories that have the same names as those found in this repository.

Updating

This must be done whenever you make a change to .gitconfig or pull from the remote repo.

cd ~/.dotfiles
bash bootstrap.sh

Custom OS X defaults

When setting up a new Mac, you may want to customise your OS X defaults after installing the dotfiles.

bash .osx

Adding custom commands

You can use a ~/.extra file to add custom commands without the need to fork this repository, or to add commands that you don’t want to commit to a public repository. If ~/.extra exists, it will be sourced for inclusion in bash_profile.

Here is an example ~/.extra:

# PATH exports
PATH=$PATH:~/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin
export PATH

# Git credentials
# Not under version control to prevent people from accidentally
# committing with your details
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Nicolas Gallagher"
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="nicolas@example.com"
GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
# Set these credentials in ~/.gitconfig
git config --global user.name "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
git config --global user.email "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"

Custom bash prompt

I use a custom bash prompt based on the Solarized color palette and influenced by @gf3's and @cowboy's custom prompts. Details are in the bash_prompt file.

Screenshot:

Adding new git submodules

If you want to add more git submodules, e.g. vim plugins to be managed by pathogen, then follow these steps while in the root of the superproject.

# Add the new submodule
git submodule add git://example.com/remote/path/to/repo.git vim/bundle/one-submodule
# Initialize the submodule
git submodule init
# Clone the submodule
git submodule update
# Stage the changes
git add vim/bundle/one-submodule
# Commit the changes
git commit -m "Add a new submodule: one-submodule"

Updating git submodules

Updating individual submodules within the superproject:

# Change to the submodule directory
cd vim/bundle/one-submodule
# Checkout the desired branch (of the submodule)
git checkout master
# Pull from the tip of master (of the submodule - could be any sha or pointer)
git pull origin master
# Go back to main dotfiles repo root
cd ../../..
# Stage the submodule changes
git add vim/bundle/one-submodule
# Commit the submodule changes
git commit -m "Update submodule 'one-submodule' to the latest version"
# Push to a remote repository
git push origin master

Now, if anyone updates their local repository from the remote repository, then using git submodule update will update the submodules (that have been initialized) in their local repository. N.B This will wipe away any local changes made to those submodules.

Acknowledgements

Inspiration and code was taken from many sources, including:

• @mathiasbynens (Mathias Bynens) https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles
• @tejr (Tom Ryder) https://github.com/tejr/dotfiles
• @gf3 (Gianni Chiappetta) https://github.com/gf3/dotfiles
• @cowboy (Ben Alman) https://github.com/cowboy/dotfiles