Homesick is sorta like rip, but for dotfiles. It uses git to clone a repository containing dotfiles, and saves them in ~/.homesick. It then allows you to symlink all the dotfiles into place with a single command.

We call a repository that is compatible with homesick to be a 'castle'. To act as a castle, a repository must be organized like so:

Contains a 'home' directory
'home' contains any number of files and directories that begin with '.'

To get started, install homesick first:

gem install homesick

Next, you use the homesick command to clone a castle:

homesick clone git://github.com/technicalpickles/pickled-vim.git

Alternatively, if it's on github, there's a slightly shorter way:

homesick clone technicalpickles/pickled-vim

With the castle cloned, you can now link its contents into your home dir:

homesick symlink pickled-vim

If you use the shorthand syntax for GitHub repositories in your clone, please note you will instead need to run:

homesick symlink technicalpickles/pickled-vim

If you're not sure what castles you have around, you can easily list them:

homesick list

To pull your castle (or all castles):

homesick pull --all|CASTLE

To commit your castle's changes:

homesick commit CASTLE

To push your castle:

homesick push CASTLE

Not sure what else homesick has up its sleeve? There's always the built in help:

homesick help

.homesick_subdir

homesick symlink basically makes symlink to only first depth in castle/home. If you want to link nested files/directories, please use .homesick_subdir.

For example, when you have castle like this:

castle/home
`-- .config
    `-- fooapp
        |-- config1
        |-- config2
        `-- config3

and have home like this:

$ tree -a
~
|-- .config
|   `-- barapp
|         |-- config1
|         |-- config2
|         `-- config3
`-- .emacs.d
    |-- elisp
    `-- inits

You may want to symlink only to castle/home/.config/fooapp instead of castle/home/.config because you already have ~/.config/barapp. In this case, you can use .homesick_subdir. Please write "directories you want to look up sub direcoties (instead of just first depth)" in this file.

castle/home/.homesick_subdir

.config

and run homesick symlink CASTLE. The result is:

~
|-- .config
|   |-- barapp
|   |     |-- config1
|   |     |-- config2
|   |     `-- config3
|   `-- fooapp        -> castle/home/.config/fooapp
`-- .emacs.d
    |-- elisp
    `-- inits

Or homesick track NESTED_FILE CASTLE adds a line automatically. For example:

homesick track .emacs.d/elisp castle

castle/home/.homesick_subdir

.config
.emacs.d

home directory

~
|-- .config
|   |-- barapp
|   |     |-- config1
|   |     |-- config2
|   |     `-- config3
|   `-- fooapp        -> castle/home/.config/fooapp
`-- .emacs.d
    |-- elisp         -> castle/home/.emacs.d/elisp
    `-- inits

and castle

castle/home
|-- .config
|   `-- fooapp
|       |-- config1
|       |-- config2
|      `-- config3
`-- .emacs.d
    `-- elisp

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

Fork the project.
Make your feature addition or bug fix.
Add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)
Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Need homesick without the ruby dependency?

Check out homeshick.

README.markdown

homesick

.homesick_subdir

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

Need homesick without the ruby dependency?

Copyright