Warning: If you want to give these dotfiles a try, you should first fork this repository, review the code, and remove things you don’t want or need. Don’t blindly use my settings unless you know what that entails. Use at your own risk!

You can clone the repository wherever you want (I like to keep it in ~/dotfiles). The bootstrapper script will pull in the latest version and copy the files to your home folder.

git clone https://github.com/brucebentley/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles && cd ~/dotfiles && source bootstrap.sh

To update, cd into your local dotfiles repository and then:

source bootstrap.sh

Alternatively, to update while avoiding the confirmation prompt:

set -- -f; source bootstrap.sh

To install these dotfiles without Git:

cd; curl -#L https://github.com/brucebentley/dotfiles/tarball/master | tar -xzv --strip-components 1 --exclude={README.md,bootstrap.sh,.macos,LICENSE.txt}

To update later on, just run that command again.

If ~/dotfiles/.path exists, it will be sourced along with the other files, before any feature testing (such as detecting which version of ls is being used) takes place.

Here’s an example ~/dotfiles/.path file that adds /usr/local/bin to the $PATH:

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

If ~/dotfiles/.extra exists, it will be sourced along with the other files. You can use this to add a few custom commands without the need to fork this entire repository, or to add commands you don’t want to commit to a public repository.

My ~/dotfiles/.extra looks something like this:

##################################################
# WORKSPACES                                     #
##################################################
WORKSPACE="/Users/bbentley"

DESKTOP="$WORKSPACE/Desktop"
DOCUMENTS="$WORKSPACE/Documents"
DOWNLOADS="$WORKSPACE/Downloads"
DROPBOX="$WORKSPACE/Dropbox"
PICTURES="$WORKSPACE/Pictures"
VIDEOS="$WORKSPACE/Videos"
PROJECTS="$WORKSPACE/Projects"
SITES="$WORKSPACE/Sites"
DATA="$WORKSPACE/data"
DEV="$WORKSPACE/dev"
DOTFILES="$WORKSPACE/dotfiles"

GITHUB_PROJECTS="$PROJECTS/GitHub"
PERSONAL_PROJECTS="$PROJECTS/Personal"
PROTOTYPES_PROJECTS="$PROJECTS/Prototypes"
SAMPLES_PROJECTS="$PROJECTS/Samples"

DEV_PERSONAL="$DEV/personal"
DEV_CERTS="$DEV/certs"
CERT_LOCALHOST="$DEV_CERTS/localhost"
ENVIRONMENTS_PERSONAL="$DEV_PERSONAL/environments"
SCRIPTS_PERSONAL="$DEV_PERSONAL/scripts"
VENVS_PERSONAL="$DEV_PERSONAL/venvs"


##################################################
# GIT                                            #
##################################################
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Bruce Bentley"
GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
git config --global user.name "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="bbentley@mbopartners.com"
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
git config --global user.email "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"

You could also use ~/dotfiles/.extra to override settings, functions and aliases from my dotfiles repository. It’s probably better to fork this repository instead, though.

When setting up a new Mac, you may want to set some sensible macOS defaults:

./dotfiles/.macos

When setting up a new Mac, you may want to install some common Homebrew formulae (after installing Homebrew, of course):

./dotfiles/brew.sh

Some of the functionality of these dotfiles depends on formulae installed by brew.sh. If you don’t plan to run brew.sh, you should look carefully through the script and manually install any particularly important ones. A good example is Bash/Git completion: the dotfiles use a special version from Homebrew.

Suggestions, Improvements, Questions, Comments or Concerns are always welcomed!

Bruce Bentley