How I manage my dot files

Following a thread I saw on hacker news, I put all of my config files and scripts under git to make setting up a new system easier.

Since this setup is a litle bit different than a normal git setup, you need to un the alias config instead of git. Also, since the entire home directory is technically under version control, there's a few commands you should not run (e..g, config status -u) unless you want to traverse your entire home directory :)

How to set up this repo up on an exisiting system

Something usually goes wrong here. Good luck :)

1. Clone the git repo onto your computer.

   You can rm the separate-git flag if you don't want to keep things under version control.

   cd ~ && git clone --separate-git-dir=$HOME/.myconf git@github.com:TessHuelskamp/.myconf.git temp

2. Copy the files you want over into your home directory ( e.g., cp temp/.aliases ~/.aliases )

3. Make sure that this line (below) is sourced in your login scripts so git knows how to interact with your home direcotry.

   • alias config='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.myconf/ --work-tree=$HOME'

   Note: This line should already be in your ~/.aliases file if you copied that over in an earlier step.

4. source the ~/.aliases file

5. Configure your config git directory not to show untracked files by default (in this case those untracked files would be the entirity of your home directory :) ) config config status.showUntrackedFiles no

   Note: You'll need to remember to add any new files to this setup (e.g., any new ~/bin/exes or ~/.configs) because git won't prompt you to do that.

Note on the difference between bash_profile and zshrc

The latest mac update changed the default shell from bash to zsh. I switched over to zshrc as my main shell since I don't have a strong opinion between the two shells.

I moved all of the aliases from ~/.bash_profile into ~/.aliases and had both the ~/.bash_profile and ~/.zshrc file source that aliases file.

Note that this setup means that ~/.aliases should be a terminal node in a source tree. If you mess that up, speaking from experience :p , you'll create an infinite source loop that'll block you from logging into an interactive terminal shell :) (If you do create a forever loop you can fix it by running rm ~/.aliases from a "New Command" window in Terminal)

General new system TODOs

• Terminal configurations
  • Option as a meta key
• Keyboard: CapsLock -> Esc
• defaults write com.apple.screencapture location AN_EXISTING_DIR
• Add some desktop pointers to frequenltly used locations
  • ln -s ~/ScreenShots ~/Desktop

  • Also the Sandbox & Downloads

• brew
• Hot corner locks window
  • Put display to sleep
  • And then require password immediately after locking