I've been sharing my .dotfiles for quite some time now, but it was more of a chaotic mess than something really useful for another earthling.

Going on the thematic organization route with symlinks is a lot better for a number of reasons which I'm not going to tackle in this very README.

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              / \,,_  .'|
           ,{{| /}}}}/_.'
          }}}}` '{{'  '.
        {{{{{    _   ;, \
     ,}}}}}}    /o`\  ` ;)
    {{{{{{   /           (
    }}}}}}   |            \
   {{{{{{{{   \            \          ,-------------------------------.
   }}}}}}}}}   '.__      _  |        /       HI                        \
   {{{{{{{{       /`._  (_\ /       /      /   \                        |
    }}}}}}'      |    //___/   --= <   VVVI     HI-HI-HI                |
jgs `{{{{`       |     '--'         \                   \               |
     }}}`                            \                  HIM-HIM-HIM!!!  /
                                      '--------------------------------'

• git clone git://github.com/icebreaker/dotfiles ~/.dotfiles
• cd ~/.dotfiles
• make install (or if you don't have make, then ./install)

If you clone to a non-standard location a.k.a not $HOME/.dotfiles be sure to edit bash/bashrc.symlink and update the DOTFILES variable.

First of all your .dotfiles directory is scanned and all files ending with .bsh extension are sourced whenever you open up a terminal; this means that you can break down your EXPORTS, ENV at your hearts content without stuffing everything in a single file by just simply dropping in a new file somewhere within .dotfiles and presto you don't even need to edit anything. Neat isn't it?

Secondly, whenever you execute make install your .dotfiles directory is scanned for files ending with .symlink.

Some real life examples in order to illustrate how this works:

• $DOTFILES/vim/vimrc.symlink => $HOME/.vimrc
• $DOTFILES/vim/vim.symlink => $HOME/.vim
• $DOTFILES/gnome/gnome2/gedit/themes.symlink => $HOME/.gnome2/gedit/themes

That's all folks. Simple huh?

A small price to pay for well a organized .dotfiles collection which makes updating a joy and breeze.

In the $DOTFILES/bin directory (which is automatically added to the PATH) there are a couple of helper or wrapper scripts which make my life easier in the first place and they might do the same for yours.

I would like to highlight the dot-aliases script which will list all your registered aliases sorted by topic inside your .dotfiles directory. You can even filter by topic using dot-aliases mytopic.

Also the dot-update will update your .dotfiles regardless of your current directory and it will also automatically reload your .bashrc.

• use pathogen and git submodules for Vim
  • CSApprox as submodule
  • Solarized as submodule
  • ScrollColor as submodule

• Fork the project.
• Make your feature addition or bug fix.
• Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Copyright (c) 2011, Mihail Szabolcs

Everything is provided as-is under the MIT license. For more information, see LICENSE.