Dotfiles

This repository houses the configurations for the software I use.

Getting Started

• Install GNU Stow.
• Install whatever software you're interested in, e.g. Vim.
• Use Stow to create symbolically linked files in the appropriate locations: stow Vim.

Theme

Alacritty, Neovim and tmux share one color scheme, zenbones, and switch between its light and dark variants together.

Switching

Write both of the generated files described below. For dark:

mkdir -p ~/.local/state/theme
cp ~/.config/alacritty/colors/zenbones-dark.toml ~/.local/state/theme/alacritty.toml
echo dark > ~/.local/state/theme/mode

For light, the same three lines with zenbones-light and light. Nothing has to be restarted. Alacritty repaints, every running Neovim repaints, and tmux follows along.

Copy onto the two files rather than moving new ones over them, so that anything holding a watch on those paths keeps pointing at the file it started watching.

How It Works

Everything that needs to know the current variant reads one of two generated files under ~/.local/state/theme:

• alacritty.toml, a copy of one of the two palettes in Alacritty/.config/alacritty/colors. Alacritty imports this path and watches the files it imports, so writing it is enough to repaint every open window.
• mode, the word light or dark. Neovim reads it at startup to set background, and watches it afterwards so that switching in one pane repaints the editor in every other pane. Changing background is all that is needed: Neovim reloads the colorscheme when it changes, and zenbones reads background rather than setting it.

tmux is not in that list, and is not told anything. Its colors are palette slots rather than hex, so Alacritty reloading its palette is what recolors tmux. See Tmux/README.md.

An unrecognized mode, or no mode at all, is treated as dark.

Both files are generated, so neither is in this repository. On a new machine, after stowing Alacritty, run the three lines above once to create them.

The three programs have no way to agree on a theme by themselves. Alacritty cannot follow the system appearance, tmux has no theme of its own, and Neovim only reads the terminal background once at startup. Two files that all three derive from is the smallest thing that keeps them in step, and it is the reason a switch needs no reload anywhere.

Using This Repository

Each piece of software gets its own directory. Within that directory, create the same directories and files that you would normally expect in your home directory. For example, suppose you want to store your Emacs configuration in ~/.config/emacs/init.el, then in this repository, create the following structure:

Emacs/
  |_.config/
    |_emacs/
      |_init.el

Then when you've installed Emacs, use stow --target=$HOME Emacs to create a symlink file in ~/.config/emacs/init.el that points to the file in this repository.