~hedy/dotfiles

My config and setup tips for my future self 
Emacs: Give more contrast to comments
Emacs: Add Catppuccin Mocha
Fish: Use more portable characters in VCS prompt

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#dotfiles

These are the setup I have on almost all machines I work in, and because I work on many tildes, I make this set of configuration as cross-platform as possible.

Used on (aka loosely tested on):

  • MacOS
  • Debian/Ubuntu
  • Arch
  • ~WSL 1~ (I no longer use that)

WSL 2 would probably be a similar experience to any of those corresponding linux distros.

Note that WSL support of clipboard pastes is deprecated on NVIM as of 2023-06-30. Before which, you need to have a pbcopy/pbpaste binary in path that handles clipboard operations with windows.

Repository: SourceHut

Mirrors: tildegit (gitea) | GitHub

Table of Contents

#Overview

#Installation

  1. Install yadm
  2. Clone the repo with yadm
  3. Fix conflicts as you please
  4. Reload sessions
  • fish
  • tmux source ~/.tmux.conf
  1. Selectively run scripts in dotscripts using dot <type> <target> such as dot setup fish to suppress those not-found errors.

Here are detailed information for each component of my dotfiles

#Shell

My default shell is fish because it comes with auto-suggestions and highlighting without the need of additional plugins. It does have its own seemingly friendlier syntax, but many times I find myself dropping into bash while writing shell scripts, so I realized... the only thing that is keeping me to fish may as well be the auto-suggestions and syntax highlighting... imrsh seems quite attractive looking at its goals, plus the fact that it's POSIX-compatible, so if development there has any progress I may even consider switching.

Despite fish being my primary shell, I still like to keep all my aliases, scripts, and environment variables synced with the other shells. This is done in the .startup.sh script. It should be sourced for POSIX-compatible shells. see dotscripts/setup/bash.

I don't track bashrc or bash_profile because I like to keep it to the system's defaults. Maintaining cross-platform versions of them when I use them rarely is a pain.

The fish shell configuration lives at .config/fish/. Of which, config.fish doesn't really anything specific, it just sources the shared environment variable file (.exportenvs.fish) and the shared aliases (.aliases).

The .exportenvs.fish file is generated by dotscripts/gen/fish-exportenvs.

It takes .exportenvs and translates it into fish syntax. Instead of using bass to source .exportenvs on the fly during fish's startup, fish can source the generated .exportenvs.fish directly which improves performance significantly.

I have a symlink .bash_aliases pointing to .aliases because bash likes to look for that file.

.exportenvs is basically a bunch of environment variables exports. A whole ton of installation scripts on the internet likes to add export something=something to bashrc, so when that happens I tend to just move it into my .exportenvs.

Every time .exportenvs is updated, run dot setup fish to regenerate .exportenvs.fish and reload the environment.

TLDR:

  • .startup.sh for POSIX-compatible shell configuration
  • Alternatively, do the aliases in .aliases,
  • do the environment variables in .exportenvs, and
  • do the PATH-updates in .addpath.

See below section "Local" for machine-specific configuration (untracked in the repo).

#Oh My Fish

Oh My Fish is like a plugin manager for fish.

I don't have a lot of plugins and nor do I use it for theme and prompt, just these utilities:

  • z: quickly access a common dir
  • bass: source bash scripts and expressions in fish (I use this for giving fish support to nvm, see the nvm function)
  • pj: quickly access projects (NOTE: as of 2024, I've switched to my own implementation for pj because this does not support pj project-name/sub/dir/here, and I do not use multiple project paths, which it supports.)

The fish theme is entirely dependent on the terminal color settings and the prompt is copied from a particular pre-existing prompt style that shows error status and git status. I've modifid the prompt style and added right prompt to show user@hostname.

Setup: dotscripts/setup/fish

#Fish functions

Fish functions (located at .config/fish/functions) are mostly aliases that require some checking or additional logic.

cat, rm, ll are aliased to ccat, trash, and exa respectively if those programs are installed.

The nvm function adds fish support to nvm (Node Version Manager).

#Local

The .config/fish/config_local.fish file is for configuration specific for a computer, this could be setting a special $EDITOR, etc.

Other local files recognized:

  • .addpath_local - machine specific software that changes PATH
  • .gitconfig-local - email/name, sendmail
  • .config/kitty/local.conf - fonts

Setup: dotscripts/gen/localfiles

#Nushell

I don't (yet?) use Nushell as my primary shell because:

  • it hasn't received enough support and adoption from external CLI programs (completions, plugins etc.)
  • There are often breaking changes
  • It does not yet support a lot of configuration I need for it to become my default shell, such as more nuanced and intelligent syntax highlighting at the prompt
  • Its completion and history is not as good as Fish's

However, the language is absolutely amazing, and sometimes I might drop into this shell to do some complex pipelining or advanced scripting (without wanting to install external packages). Hence, my Nushell environment is setup up to be satisfactorily usable, ie, same aliases, similar readline keybindings, environment variables and PATH. The latter too is inherited from the parent process, ie, fish.

Config: .config/nushell

Scripts: dotscripts/*/nu

#Editor

  • Vim: for systems that don't have neovim installed
  • Neovim (>= 0.8): primary editor, for now
  • Emacs (29 - I need emoji): continuously improving my setup, until one day, one day, I'll have it replace neovim.
  • Doom: looking for IDE features and inspiration for my nvim and vanilla emacs setup. I might drop this soon - takes so much time and resources to set it up and maintain the millions of packages only to leave it lying there and never get used.
  • VScode: I only use this when I'm too stressed to remember vim/emacs's key binds, or sometimes when I'm remote-editting. I no longer have any need for waiting for an editor an eternity to start up and maintaining... JSON configs?? that runs on Electron?? yeah... no thanks, sorry.

#Vim and nvim

README: .config/nvim/README.norg

Minimum supported version: NVIM 0.5.0

Recommended version: NVIM 0.9.0+

The bin/nv script is an alias to neovim, and runs vim if neovim is not installed.

The vim config is usable, but largely unmaintained. It can be used on systems without neovim or with an unsupported version of neovim.

Legacy neovim setup

I use vim-plug as my plugin manager for nvim because it is shorter to type. And it installs plugins asynchronously.

My nvim config directory (.config/nvim) has separate files for different types of configuration. general.vim has mostly the same content as .vimrc.

The isWSL function checks whether the system is WSL in my (n)vim configs. This is to set up the clipboard correctly and rebind some keys to make alt work correctly in vim.

Lua and LSP for Neovim

If the neovim version on the system >=0.5, LSP will be set up with lua configuration, otherwise (and if node is installed), CoC will be used. I don't use any system with neovim <0.5, so the CoC set up is unmaintained. I might remove it in the future.

LSP servers - See comments in .config/nvim/lua/lsp.lua.

I'll probably also optimize my vim config so that it can be fast and clean - available for quick editing. No auto-complete, no fancy themes, just some must-have utilities.

#Neovim Lua Setup
  • Plugin manager: Lazy.nvim
  • Completion: nvim-cmp
  • File explorer: nvim-tree and mini.files
  • Icons: nvim-web-devicons
  • Status line: Disabled (using rulerfmt + incline.nvim)

Ever since then, my startup time has improved significantly and this switch came with many other advantages including opening up a world of many modern, speedy plugins with very useful (not exactly due to being trendy) functionalities.

I like to choose plugins that are fast, customizable, and generally does not have feature creep.

LSP and completion

I use the official lsp-config plus nvim-cmp.

Linting

Linting is triggered on save. I use nvim-lint.

Treesitter

Treesitter plugin is enabled conditionally if neovim version >= 0.9.

Note that a proper C/C++ compiler toolchain is required for building the parsers.

Telescope

Telescope plugin is enabled conditionally if neovim version >= 0.9.

Setup:

  • dotscripts/setup/nvim (no longer needed as I no longer use vim-plug)
  • dotscripts/install/misc - Includes Vundle setup together with other software.

Additional information: .config/nvim/README.norg including brief notes about neovim vs emacs.

#TODO for neovim

(I might never complete these since I recently switched to emacs)

  • [x] Drop CoC and <v0.5 support
  • [x] Use Lazy.nvim package manager
  • [x] Replace lightline with lualine
  • [x] Set up snippets
  • [x] Replace NERDTree with ~neo-tree~ nvim-tree
  • [x] Make use of Lazy loading
  • [x] Fix ftplugin + lazy ft handle
  • [x] Use Tree sitter
  • [x] Ensure conditionally loaded plugins (from nvim version) work as expected

#Vanilla Emacs

I use chemacs2 for switching emacs profiles (for emacs < v29) and it allows me to use both vanilla emacs and doom emacs at the same time. See .emacs-profiles.el.

Setup: dotscripts/setup/emacs. This script is pretty heavily tested and it should set up everything you need to start using both emacs and doom normally. It installs chemacs and doom if not already installed.

My main emacs is vanilla emacs, the configuration lives at ~/.config/emacs. My primary emacs version is Emacs 29, because I need better SVG support. I use Emacs 28 sometimes for testing.

Configuration for both Vanilla and Doom emacs are Literate (org files that get exported "tangled" to indicated Elisp destinations).

#Doom emacs

Doom itself requires at least emacs 27+ and git 2.23+ among other things. More info on the github repo.

2023: I started to use Doom a lot more, before switching to primarily vanilla emacs in 2023-09. The configuration there is somewhat up to date, but not guaranteed as I don't really use doom anymore.

The emacs directory would be at .doomemacs (because .emacs.d is for chemacs). Relevant environment variables are set in .exportenvs, also see .emacs-profiles.el.

#Terminal

The shell theme depends on the terminal theme. I use Kitty Terminal, where its config at .config/kitty. It uses customized Catppuccin Mocha theme. Font configuration varies depending on the system hence it should be in a separate file font.conf. A local.conf file is recognized. Both of which are not tracked in this repo as they are platform-dependent.

#Gemini and Spartan client

My primary client is Gelim on the terminal and Lagrange otherwise.

Gelim config is at .config/gelim. gelim is my own gemini and spartan client for the terminal that isn't a full-blown TUI and tries to stay simple whilst offering many features and extensibility. It's still WIP so there won't be much configuration in there yet.

#TODO

  • [x] add LSP and completion to emacs
  • [x] .addpath file
  • [x] Wait for nvim 0.5 to because more widely adopted in system packages, then use full lua config + lsp
  • [ ] Flesh out emacs config to support most of my needs for programming and writing
  • [ ] (planning) Drop Doom support