Some dotfiles

These are my dotfiles. There are many like them, but these ones are mine.

I like to take sort of a minimalist approach, enhancing the original tools rather than turning them into something completely different. I also don't like huge bulky plugins that turn my shell/editor/whatever into something completely different — I'm using these tools because I already like them.

You may want to run install.sh, which will link files into your home directory and install a couple useful odds and ends.

The things I use:

XCompose

Shortcuts for typing various Unicode glyphs using a compose key. e.g., typing compose : ) produces ☺.

To make any use of these, you'll need a compose key. Find the "advanced" section of your keyboard settings (it'll be a bunch of sections about very specific key modifications), find the section about the compose key, and pick one. I use right Alt.

Main downside is that, as far as I can tell, there's no way to reload this file without restarting X.

ack

Page by default, smart case (all lowercase → ignore case), sort files.

git

Contains my name, so like, watch out for that. For this reason, it's not linked by install.sh unless your username is eevee. :)

Mostly just sets some colors. Also some aliases, which I never use.

Oh, and sets conflictstyle to diff3, which is amazing.

psql

That is, the PostgreSQL CLI client. Persistent history, nicer prompt, prettier display.

screen

Mostly just tries to fix the status bar. I don't use screen any more so this is completely unmaintained.

tmux

Changes the prefix key to ^A, adds a couple quick switch bindings. Pretty colors for the status bar.

vim

Turns on everything that should be on by default anyway.

Updated syntax for a few languages I use.

A few unobtrusive keybindings: - and = to switch tabs, Ctrl-arrow to switch windows, %% when typing a filename to get the current directory.

Loads .vimrc.local from your homedir if it exists.

Plugins:

• Airline for buffer status bars: super slick.
• Ctrl-P for searching your project (or open buffers, or MRU) for files by subsequence.
• Gitgutter for an inline git diff.
• Characterize to enhance ga.
• Ack for ack support much like the built-in grep support.
• Some other things I've forgotten I have.

zsh

Turns on a bunch of options. History is shared immediately, but up/down don't see what other shells have been doing. Automatically reports time for anything over 5 seconds.

Window title that's SSH-aware, though hardcoded to my username.

Minimal-effort completion: try hard, use menu.

Dead simple Debian-style prompt.

Syntax highlighting, ooh.