See permissions AT https://github.com/marcospb19/permissions !!

THIS README IS JUST A SCRATCH, TOOL IS NOT FINISHED.

DOTÃO

dotao is a modern dotfiles manager that keeps you in control.

A dotfiles manager is a tool that helps organizing your dotfiles (configuration files), making it easy to backup, share, remove and reapply the settings.

• About
• Installation
• Usage
  • Creating
  • Importing
  • Linking
  • Applying To Other Systems
• Wiki

ABOUT

It is designed to work nicely with git, because you can:

• Monitor and revert file changes.
• Change history is compressed.
• Upload backups.
• Share dotfiles with friends.

However, using it with git is optional.

dotao uses a dotao.tsml:

• It keeps track of your dotfiles folder.
• Allows for some specific file and folder configuration.
• Allows for system-specific conditional layouts.
• Is human readable and editable.

This file is updated automatically by commands, you don't have to edit manually, but you can.

dotao uses symlinks to:

• Link imported files to their original location.
• You can still use them as if they were there.

INSTALLATION

Installing the binary

Run this script.

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/marcospb19/dotao/master/install.sh | sh

Compiling from source

Wiki - Compiling from source.

USAGE

There are three main steps for using dotao:

1. Creating a new ~/dotfiles/ folder.
   • Containing a dotao.tsml file.
2. Importing your files into ~/dotfiles/.
   • Moving files and updating dotao.tsml accordingly.
3. Linking imported files.
   • Creating symlinks to their original location.

Commands used in this tutorial for each step:

1. dotao init
2. dotao import
3. dotao link

The second and third steps are repeatable.

Creating

In your user's home directory, create dotfiles/ and enter it.

mkdir dotfiles
cd dotfiles

Now ask dotao to create a dotao.tsml configuration file.

dotao init

Importing

Here's an example with zsh configuration files, to show how to easily import files to your folder.

zsh files usually stay in the home directory:

~/.zshrc
~/.aliases
~/.functions
~/.profile

In this step, we will use the import command to:

• Create a zsh folder.
• Move each file.
• Update dotao.tsml with files info.

The folder will look like:

Files moved:

~/.aliases     ->  ~/dotfiles/zsh/.aliases
~/.functions  ->  ~/dotfiles/zsh/.functions
~/.profile   ->  ~/dotfiles/zsh/.profile
~/.zshrc    ->  ~/dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc

The command used:

dotao import zsh ~/.aliases ~/.functions ~/.profile ~/.zshrc

Linking

dotao.tsml holds all the information needed to create the links.

So let's link it!

dotao link

Now your files are accessible by your applications at the same place just like before.

(Hint: before linking, run dotao status to see a linkage report.)

Applying to other systems

Now that your files are inside of one folder, let's assume that you have uploaded to github.

Now in another system, clone your dotfiles and enter the folder:

git clone https://github.com/marcospb19/dotfiles # Use your URL
cd dotfiles

Inside of the folder, run dotao status to see if there are any conflicts:

dotao status

Once you have solved every conflict:

dotao link

Done, all your configs applied in another system.

COMMANDS

dotao usage is all based on commands (similar to how the git CLI works).

dotao COMMAND ...

Commands may accept specific subcommands, arguments and flags.

dotao init

Creates a dotao.tsml file, initiating dotfiles folder.

dotao update

TODO INFO

dotao import

Creates the necessary folders inside of ~/dotfiles/, moves the files, and updates dotao.tsml.

So dotao import is just a convenient command that merges functionality from 3 other commands:

1. mkdir
2. mv
3. dotao update

dotao status

Reads dotao.tsml, scans your dotfiles folder, and displays a report of:

• Is there something left to link?
• Is any file missing?
• Is there a file already in the target path?
  • Is it a file or folder?
  • If it is already a link, but points to the wrong place
• Are multiple files pointing to a same conflicting location?

Much like git status does, it can be used at any moment.

WIKI

Check our wiki.