offline-gists is a simple Ruby Rakefile that makes it easy to keep offline copies (i.e. backups) of gists.

Why?

1. Paranoia -- what happens if github loses my critical gists?
2. Offline access -- not all airplanes have wifi

Requirements

• Ruby 1.9.2
• Rubygems
  • bundler gem
  • git gem
  • psych gem

Getting started

Google will help you get Ruby and Rubygems installed if you don't have them already. (You can check with these commands: ruby -v and gem -v.) Then:

0. Run bundle
1. Clone this repository (git clone git://github.com/masnick/offline-gists.git)
2. Rename gists/manifest_example.yaml to gists/manifest.yaml and add your gists.
3. From the root folder of the repository, run rake. You should see your gists cloned into the gists/ subfolder.

manifest.yaml

The format is simple YAML:

---
'local name for gist': 478d9e3cd926028c91f6
'local name for another gist': 901651

You can have as many gists as you want in here.

The name for each gist is just used for naming the folder of the local repository. Spaces are converted into dashes and all non-alphanumeric characters are removed.

Multiple manifest files

You can have as many folders as you want at the same level as gists/. Each of these can have a manifest.yaml file. The rake task defaults to the gists/ folder, but you can run rake run[foo] to use the manifest file in the foo/ folder.

Sharing your manifest

This is easy! Just make your gists/ or other folder a git repository.

cd gists
git init

Then add the following to gists/.gitignore:

*
!.gitignore
!manifest.yaml

Then make your initial commit:

git add -A
git ci -am "initial commit"

Now you can push/pull this repository as you would normally. Note: if you share this repository publicly and it includes private gists, these gists will be accessible to anyone who looks at the manifest file!

Copying

All rights reserved. Feel free to use for non-commercial or personal projects. For other uses, please contact me via my website.