LinkTheDots

A convenient script for keeping your git-managed dotfiles linked into your home directory.

Installation

###Dotfiles Layout

LTD expects your dotfiles repo to be laid out in a specific way so that it knows what to do with each file. In the top of your repo, it looks for:

1. link/: Any files in this directory will get symlinked to your home directory.

2. copy/: Any files in this directory will get copied to your home directory once. If there is already a file there that conflicts, then you will be prompted to resolve it, unless you specified an override flag at runtime. Once a file has been copied like this, it will not be overwritten on subsequent runs.

3. hooks/pre/ Any files placed here will be sourced at runtime, before any linking. This should contain scripts for accomplishing any special tasks that aren't supported out of the box.

4. hooks/post/ Similar to the previous directory, but scripts here are sourced after all linking and copying is done, as the last action before ltd exits.

For example, if you want to keep .bashrc linked to your dotfiles on all your machines, install a base .ssh/config on new machines, and run fancyscript.sh before linking every time you pull updates to your dotfiles, your dotfiles repo should look something like this:

dotfiles
├── copy
│   └── .ssh
│       └── config
├── hooks
│   └── pre
│       └── fancyscript.sh
└── link
    └── .bashrc

Once your dotfiles are in the proper places, you can install this script in one of two ways.

###Installation with Submodule

To install as a submodule, navigate to the root of your dotfiles repo and run: git submodule add http://github.com/jmatth/LinkTheDots.git ltd. This will add this repo as a submodule in the directory ltd. This will make it a bit easier to get any future updates to LTD by just updating the submodule.

###Installation by Copying

If you don't appreciate submodules in your dotfiles, you can always just copy the script "link.sh" into your dotfiles repo and run it from there. The script is written to detect whether or not it is inside a submodule, so you can just commit and run. Use this method if you don't want to complicate your dotfiles with submodules, or want to make modifications (such as changing some of the default values at the top of the script).

Usage

./link.sh <action> [<args>]

To start linking with the default options, just run link.sh install from inside your dotfiles repo. For a full list of possible actions and their arguments, run link.sh help.