Set Up Vi/m Dotfiles Configuration Subdirectory

Single File, 100% Portable, No Blocking Dependencies

Make sure you have setup your dotfiles repo.

Change into your dotfiles repo.

cd ~/repos/gitlab.com/rwxyou/dotfiles

Create a vim subdirectory inside of your dotfiles directory.

mkdir vim

Change into the vim directory.

cd vim

Create or obtain a Vi/m configuration file and place within directory as vimrc.

curl -LO https://rwx.gg/tools/editors/vi/vimrc

Create a setup script.

touch setup
  chmod u+x setup
  vi setup

Have it print Configuring Vim for now.

#!/bin/bash
  echo Configuring Vim

Run it to test.

./setup

Configuring Vim

Add a line to create a symbolic link from your $HOME directory to the local vimrc file. Don’t forget the full paths in the command. You can also add another line to confirm that the link was created successfully.

#!/bin/bash
  echo Configuring Vim
  ln -s "$PWD/vimrc" "$HOME/.vimrc"
  ls -la ~/.vimrc

Run it to create your link.

Configuring Vim
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 sample sample 55 May 27 22:12 /home/rwxrob/.vimrc -> /home/rwxrob/repos/gitlab.com/rwxyou/dotfiles/vim/vimrc

That’s it. You should just be able to edit any file now to see the differences.

You might also want to add a README.md describing the process of how to run ./setup and perhaps make your dotfiles directory public so you can share your configuration with others.

If you want to get really fancy, you can actually add some code to detect if the full vim is on the system and prompt to have it installed and run vim for the first time to that it downloads and sets up the plugins before you run it later for the first time. Here’s the full script:

#!/bin/bash

  if [[ -z "$(which vim)" || -z "$(which vimtutor)" ]]; then
    echo Need to install full vim.
    exit 1
  fi

  echo Configuring Vim
  ln -sf "$PWD/vimrc" "$HOME/.vimrc"
  ls -l "$HOME/.vimrc"